Swarm & Handle
by julads
Summary: In the spring of 1913, Kyle, fed up with his suffocating home life, runs away to hop trains across the country, where he befriends Swarm, a true seasoned vagrant.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hi! Clearly, this is an historical AU. It's going to be my first long story. The 1928 film _Beggars of Life_ inspired me to write this story.

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The note Kyle left on the cherry table in the foyer was remarkably crude and untidy – even three hours after dinner, his hand was still shaking enough to make writing difficult. He told his parents not to look for him, to absolutely not call the police, and that'd he'd be home soon. It felt satisfyingly devious to make such a promise, for if he did come home at all, it certainly wouldn't be any time before September, three months from now, when he was to be shipped off to college. He signed the note with his name in staunch, capital letters instead of his usual neat script.

He crept out the kitchen door, snuck around the perimeter of the house, and darted across the well-trimmed lawn, making a point to trudge right through his mother's award-winning magnolias. With trembling fingers, he unlocked the wrought-iron front gate, careful to not let it shut closed behind him with its typical menacing clang. As he scurried into the night through his quiet upscale neighborhood, focused on avoiding the blaring lights of the lampposts, he resolved he wouldn't look back at his house, not even once. The sooner he got away from these imposing mansions and the prosperous people who lived in them, elite nobodies who he had the misfortune of having known his whole life, his own family included amongst them, the better. At the stop sign at the end of his street, he waved down an approaching trolley, one of the last of the evening. Riding a cable car towards Brighton Park would be his first official endeavor in adopting the poor man's life. However, he did understand the streetcar was only a modest start: it wasn't as if forfeiting calling for a cab rendered him another face in the crowd of the trodden, mangy older boys and elderly men riding so late at night. Once he paid the fare, he headed to the uncovered section in the back of the car to stand, intending to make a hasty exit once they reached the freight yard. Gripping the railing tight, he peered beyond the streetcar's roof, squinting and trying to make out the few stars in the cloudy nighttime sky. He was looking forward to seeing real stars out on the road, clear ones that actually twinkled and weren't marred by the omnipresent city smog. For the adventurer, the stars were his guide. Damn, should he have brought his pocket astronomy book? No, part of being on the road meant packing light. Thank goodness he'd remembered to bring his compass however, he thought, patting the pocket on his suede satchel to make sure it was still in there.

Tomorrow morning, one of the maids would discover his note and timidly hand it over to his mother. She'd be furious at first, possibly even angrier than she had been earlier. Kyle's prediction was that his parents would call the police anyway, but he was certain he'd be out of the city by the time any real search efforts were coordinated. If all went as he hoped, sooner or later, he'd just be brandished another runaway. Over time, his parents would lamentingly acknowledge every grievance they had pitted against his weakened spirit, realize they had rashly neglected to consider his opinion on the decisions they nonchalantly made for his supposed betterment. When he came home – no, _if_ he came home, they'd apologize relentlessly, admit they'd been such uncaring, callous parents, and begrudgingly, he would find it in his heart to forgive them.

The cables above the car hummed mechanically as the trolley sped away from the residential areas of the city, the loudest noise in the streets so late in the evening. On a Tuesday at almost midnight, even the bars were quiet. For Kyle, the silence was intolerable, painfully inappropriate for the beginning of an adventure: the world should be loud, vibrant, inundated with the clamor of strangers' shouts, the growling of gas-powered automobiles, all back dropped by the low reverb of Chicago's own voice. Tonight, Chicago was silent, like she was holding her breath, waiting to see if he would really go through with this. Sighing, Kyle unbuttoned the front pocket of his satchel and examined the compass. The needle couldn't seem to decide on a direction, mustn't be able catch up with the speed of the cable car, he decided, tossing it back in his bag.

Two blocks away from the freight yard, he hopped off the car, not wanting to get off right at the station for fear of looking too obvious. The moment he landed on the concrete road, he was suddenly, ridiculously, nervous. While walking toward Kedzie, not too fast but not too slow, a grating voice in his head, the one that always sounded vaguely like his mother's, reminded him that if he abandoned this foolish plan, he could catch the last car back home and no one would know the better. But the yards were already in sight, and besides, practicality and reason and being cautious and patient is what drove him to do this stupid, stupid thing anyway. Shaking his head violently, he said aloud, so as to convince himself wholly, that he was a man of the road now, a trailblazing adventurer.

For years, Kyle had criticized the fact that Corwith Yard had no fence. It was as if Chicago was _condoning _this lifestyle, welcoming vagabonds into the city to come and go as it suited them. Now, of course, as he hurried to the tracks, he was grateful no one had ever listened to him and installed one. There was a chance a fence could have been the last deterrent to thwart his scheme and send him slinking back home, where life was unsatisfying and unsatisfactory. He crept between the boxcars, wandering without direction, beginning to wish running away hadn't been so impromptu. If he had had the time, he would have loitered around Madison Street in hopes of meeting someone his age who seemed trustworthy and was willing to teach him the complexities of train hopping. The anti-tramp laws were not very stringently enforced, though it still unnerved Kyle to be breaking the law for the very first time in his seventeen years. He'd feel better if he were with someone else, at least.

Some long minutes later, he still hadn't come across a single boxcar with an open door, and the panic began to set in upon his nerves. The one thing he knew about trains and jumping them was that the boxcars were locked from the outside, so he didn't bother trying to pull open any already closed doors. He'd seen the occasional snippets in the paper detailing the macabre deaths of hobos who'd forgotten to stick a pebble or twig in the car door, then had it shut by a rail worker while the poor son of a bitch was sleeping, so he subsequently starved to death in the boxcar because he couldn't get the door open.

Relatively nearby, he heard heavy feet treading through the gravel, followed by a booming, authoritative voice. "Who's there?"

Then, he was struck with real terror, the kind that immobilizes the body, forces one's mind to confirm the reality of the circumstance, given how impossibly terrifying it is. _Move, move, damn you! _his thoughts bellowed. He had to get the hell out of here, to run, to hide. Fucking hell, it was a cop, it had to be a cop, he decided morbidly as he crawled under the nearest boxcar, his whole body shaking. Shit, what if he looked below the car? Oh but wait, he'd forgotten entirely about the rods that spanned the underside of each boxcar. If he could manage to crawl up and position himself across them, sandwiching his body between the rods and the car, he'd have a better chance of evading discovery. Grappling the iron bar running down the middle, he hoisted his weight up and over it with relative ease, though he scraped his neck against the rough underside of the boxcar. Thankfully, and just in time, he noticed his overstuffed satchel strewn forgotten on the track below, and he immediately snatched it up.

"Anybody over here?" he heard the cop shout again over the yard. He was very near now, and Kyle couldn't afford to breathe. If he got caught, he knew he'd pay gravely, though not with the meager legal repercussions for trying to catch a free ride: his mother would be livid, disgusted with him for maiming the Broflovski name, and characteristically, she'd be vocal about it too, bombarding him with her condescending rambling spiels, obscure accusations and empty threats.

Yellow light darted over the gravel. The cop paused in his search, pointing the light at a low angle alongside the car behind Kyle's. All Kyle could see of him was his polished black shoes, illuminated by the jittery flash. The light shot just below the far left corner of Kyle's car, and he felt his muscles go rigid. He clutched the bar in an extreme death grip, fingers going numb. Gloriously, after only a few seconds, the cop didn't examine his car further. His shiny black shoes treaded away, leaving Kyle undiscovered, hidden by the night's blackness. Until he decreed enough time had passed that the cop wouldn't come back to make a more thorough investigation, Kyle only allowed himself to let out shallow, agitated breaths. He had to move, had to find an open boxcar, fast, before this train started moving. _How long had it been since that cop left? _he wondered, feeling like it had been so long, but not long enough. To weave his body back through the rods, he struggled to shove himself forward enough to get his feet back onto the tracks. Distantly, he heard a shrill whistle, then everything around him began to vibrate. No, goddamnit, wait, _wait!_ He wasn't ready; he had to get out of the rods first, had to find an open car. Unsympathetically, the heavy wheels began to rotate, thought just barely, so maybe there was still time to get out safely. But he could get crushed, even _split in half,_ if he attempted to free himself from beneath the car now. Well, shit. Miserably, he rationalized that the train would have to stop eventually. He just wished he knew how long it'd be till the next stop, wherever that even was. Come to think of it, where the hell was this train even going? Maybe if he'd actually put some _thought_ into running away, he could have somehow obtained details about the freight schedules. As the wheels sped up, clicking deafeningly and much too close to his face, he blinked furiously, disgusted for being so quick to tears, and then resigned himself to surviving the next however many hours.

The first hour, or what he guessed was an hour, wasn't so bad, although his straining grip around the bars was beginning to make his hands feel like they weren't part of his body anymore, merely cumbersome weights attached to the ends of his arms. The train was speeding hellishly fast, and he tried not to think about what would happen if he fell through the rods. Eventually, the heavy clack of the wheels simmered into marginally-ignorable background noise and the strung up, manic feeling of apprehension dissipated, rendering his body limp with exhaustion. At home, his bed was fixed, ready to be slept in, and he groaned miserably imagining how good it'd feel to burrow beneath the airy, summer quilts. His arms and legs ached terribly. Beyond any doubt, he'd never felt so physically wretched, exhausted or uncomfortable in his whole life, not even the time two years ago when he'd been so ill with typhoid he had deliriously accepted his death as imminent. Was it worth it, surviving that brush with death only to end up running away, stowed beneath an old boxcar on its way to God-knows-where? A pebble shot up from the tracks and hit him in the face – right by his eye too, for fuck's sake. He made sure to keep his eyes closed from then on, though doing so made it harder to stay awake as the hours crept by. Pitifully, he thought about going home. Really though, that would be the worst way to accept defeat: by offering a grand, sickeningly opportune presentation to his family of how incapable he was at managing his life. He couldn't go back, wouldn't go back. He didn't want to have to pretend to care about copyright law and certainly didn't want to have to take Adina to Karlin's for lunch ever again.

As dawn approached, smothering the outlines of the faraway hills in a tentative gray, Kyle thought perhaps the train wasn't going quite as fast anymore, but he forbade himself from getting too hopeful. However, either he was dying again and the world itself was slowing down until he slipped into unconsciousness forever, or the train really _was_ going to stop soon. Now, the wheels were clearly turning slower and he studied the set at the far right of his car until he could count a whole second for them to make a rotation. He decided he'd remove himself from the bars the instant the train stopped at the station, wouldn't be an idiot and play it safe again, since it had sure done him a lot of good last time. The car jolted to a halt, and Kyle shook with its force, too weary to resist the velocity. Hopefully, this station had a town nearby, wasn't some outsource depot in the middle of nowhere. As he was trying to reestablish control of his cold, tired limbs, a shuddering slam thundered right above his head, freezing him in place, his left leg half-flopped below the back bar. _A person_ hopped down from _inside the car_, planting himself about two feet ahead.

With his back to Kyle, the person – a man – lifted his arms far up over his head, spreading his half-gloved fingers wide. His hair, capped by a ragged knit hat as dirty as the rest of him, crawled all the way down to his shoulders in mangled yellow clumps. Realizing he was just a hobo, Kyle sighed deeply, regretting it instantly when the man stopped in his stretching routine, having evidently heard him. Unhurriedly, he turned around, noticing Kyle straightaway, and frowning. Kyle strained to keep his expression steady, unaffected, but he wanted to be sick with how foolish he had been to assume that just because this guy was a hobo didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. But maybe a perplexed scowl was just this bum's default expression – he didn't really look too scary, especially not when his cracked lips eased into a smirk, partially exposing his teeth. They were about as yellow as his hair.

"Hey, Swarm!" he said, unnecessarily loud, for it seemed he was only speaking to someone still inside the boxcar. "Get a look at this kid! Musta been ridin' the rods the whole way here."

Kyle glared at the man, who was really more of a boy, likely only a few years older he was. His gut reaction was to unweave himself from the rods as fast as he could and get the hell away from these people, though as he struggled to do so, he wondered it that was the best plan of action. If they didn't want to kill him, maybe they could be an asset, teach him how to catch trains the right way. Standing up again was actually sort of hard, and Kyle awkwardly stumbled back against the boxcar. As he was stretching his limbs back into proper working function, he realized, embarrassedly, he was mimicking this idiot hobo, who was still beaming, like he was expecting Kyle to offer him a present or something. Kyle clenched his jaw and glowered warily at the hobo, trying to make himself look menacing. In the corner of his eye, a dark shape edged out from the open boxcar. Kyle immediately jerked to the right and in doing so, whacked his back with a weak _clunk_ against the side of the car. Sitting on the edge of the boxcar, the second hobo stared straight at him with an expression that was mostly just sleepy, or bored perhaps. This hobo appeared a bit less dirty-looking than the other one, but not substantially so. He had black hair of an appropriate length that wasn't all disgustingly clumped together, decently topped by one of those hats old men wore. Most glaringly, he had a patch covering his left eye, which made him look quite intimidating. Kyle swallowed hard, accepting it was probably too late now to make a run for it.

"He musta had a pretty good handle on them rods, dontcha think, eh, _Swaaarmy?_" the blond guy chortled, wobbling a bit. Probably a drunk, Kyle thought, but he wanted to scream at him regardless, ask what the hell was so funny about the fact that he'd suffered all the way here while these two were living it up, sheltered, right above him.

"Guess so," the dark-haired hobo said, the one who must be Swarm. He casually hopped off the train, and Kyle, feeling that eye on him, stared at the ground, trying to decide what the hell he should do: see if these two tramps were decent enough to latch onto, or take his chances and start running. True, he was still shook up, re-acclimating himself with literally having his two feet on the ground and all, but neither of them seemed truly _antagonistic_, and besides, they had to know the secrets of this vagabond lifestyle, its tricks of the trade, how to survive on the tracks and such. Tearing himself from his thoughts, Kyle noticed Swarm and the other hobo trudge over the gravel and scamper down the muddy slope, walking away from the tracks. Kyle felt like a bubble inside his chest popped, spilling sour regret over his entrails – yet another opportunity lost by taking too long to come up with the right choice.

Swarm turned around and called out to him. "You coming to the stem?" he said as if this was a given and he didn't understand why Kyle wasn't following right behind them.

"Ah – yeah," Kyle answered, though he wasn't quite sure what the stem was. He knew he had to get off the tracks though, before anyone came to unload the cars. He tried to be cautious descending the hill, thinking he must look very ridiculous to these people, a prissy rich boy trying not to get his wool slacks dirty as he hobbled down the muddy slope. The blond hobo was still grinning dopily, muttering something about how Kyle had had a great handle on the rods or some inane bullshit like that.

"Our lil' Handle made it down the hill!" the blond hobo commended, then drew a cigarette from his mass of clumpy hair and brought it to his lips. He stuffed his whole hand in his hair and dug out a match book, ripping a match out and swiping it alight, then touched the flame to the tip of the cigarette.

"My name is _Kyle_," he said derisively, maintaining his distance as he trailed behind them into a grassy field.

"And mine's Kenny. But everyone calls me Hack. See, my hometown ain't too far from here," the hobo said friendlily, twisting around in mid-walk to offer Kyle his appallingly dirty hand. To be polite, he shook it limply, but the hobo clutched his hand heartily, grappling the handshake with his other, naturally equally dirty hand, in an overly intimate manner that was odd for a first meeting. What the hell was wrong with this drunken bastard, and what made him think it mattered to Kyle where his hometown was?

Swarm turned his head far back over his shoulder. "You a runaway?"

"Um." Kyle worried if revealing the truth was dangerous, but he couldn't think of precisely how it would be, so he relented and told the truth: "Yeah. Guess so."

His only response was a short "hm."

The three of them trudged hurriedly through the tall grass, cold and wet with dew, cutting into uneven patches of morning fog. Hack led the way, digging through the damp grass almost giddily, apparently very eager to get to the stem. Keeping up with these two was hard for Kyle, who was barely cognizant and certainly not the least bit energetic after such a rough night. He hadn't slept in how many hours now? He tried to count them, but his brain faltered in doing basic arithmetic.

Swarm yawned shallowly and scratched the back of his neck. "How long you been catching out?" he said, tilting his head back.

"Since last night," he responded, trying to sound casual, confident, which he understood was rather ironically idiotic the instant the words spun out of his mouth.

Swarm slowed his pace to walk next to Kyle. Hack clipped ahead of them, unconcerned they were steadily falling behind. He hobbled backwards for a few steps and saluted Swarm jovially, who mimicked the gesture, but with a lot less enthusiasm.

"Never been on the road before today?" Swarm asked, his one eye regarding Kyle disbelievingly.

"Nope." He was beginning to feel mildly on edge again. He prayed Swarm wouldn't ask him _why_ he had run away, because not only did Kyle have no desire whatsoever to explain, he was also concerned he would come off as a pompous idiot for abandoning a life where he had everything: a nice house to live in, friends (well, _a _friend) from prep school who would be attending the same university in the fall, plenty of food to eat and books to read.

Thankfully, Swarm responded by offering a half-smile. "Well, you're welcome to come along with us. We'll pro'ly stick around here for a coupla days, then catch out to New Or'lins."

"Oh. Yes – I'd like that," Kyle said, accepting the invitation and instantly liking Swarm a whole lot. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Milan," Swarm answered. "_Tennessee_." He smiled genuinely this time, and his teeth weren't nearly as yellow or disgusting as Hack's, which was what probably induced Kyle to smile back. Kyle was still trying to process how incredibly _far_ he was from Chicago only a day into his journey. Illinois to Tennessee had to be at least four, maybe five hundred miles. Realizing he was still staring at Swarm as he deliberated the geography, studying his only eye – which was his preferred shade of blue: dark, oceanic, not the unremarkable pale variant blonds typically had – Kyle tore his gaze forward. Ahead, Hack was only a dark speck shooting down the road. The sun was steadily inching higher, glowing shyly behind a cluster of buildings that must be the town. Hopefully the stem was simply the part of town where hobos hung out, like Madison Street in Chicago. If not, Kyle imagined it was a sprawling underground series of tunnels where tramps gambled and drank and did God knows what else.

"Almost there." Swarm pushed his fingers up under the patch to rub his socket. Kyle struggled to not appear as creeped out as he was. He sort of pitied Swarm for being so young and only having one eye – Kyle always imagined it was mostly the older hoboes who were missing limbs and body parts, like the ones he'd seen begging downtown.

Swarm was right, it wouldn't take much longer to make it to the town, even though they were walking leisurely now – and thank God for that. Kyle could feel his body was exhausted, his joints aching from use, but his mind was newly awake, anticipating what the stem would be like. Additionally, the late spring country air was invigorating: it tasted surreally fresh, even sweet, not at all like the city air he was used to.

"Don't think any place'll be open for a while, but if you got five cents, you can get a room in the lodging house. They got food there, too," Swarm explained, pointing to a building down the road. The town of Milan was still mostly asleep, only a paper boy unpacking a stack of papers at his street corner and an old hobo digging through bags of trash in an alley.

"Are you going to?" Kyle had to ask. Even though this was the smallest town he'd ever been to, if you could even call it a town (it seemed to Kyle more like a village), he didn't want to lose track of Swarm.

"Nah, I'm not tired. Slept almost the whole way here. But I can show you where the house is, then I'm gonna sit outside the library and wait for it to open," he said. Regretfully, Kyle realized he must have looked distressed, because Swarm quickly continued, "Just come to the library – it's 'bout three blocks down – when you wake up and we can grab a square. Lunch, I mean. How long you think you're gonna sleep?"

"A hundred years," Kyle moaned, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching his overstuffed satchel to his chest. Swarm snickered good-naturedly at his response, and comfortingly, Kyle was beginning to feel at ease around him. He had to admit he was pretty impressed with the library bit too.

"Maybe till one. Or two? Not too late, I hope," he answered seriously, digging his wallet out of his satchel. There were nickels in here somewhere, he remembered, leafing through the bills.

Shockingly, Swarm grabbed his hand loosely, closing around it to shut the wallet. "Oh Jesus," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You can't be letting people know you got this kinda money. You'll get rolled. _Robbed_."

Kyle simply said, "Oh," after a moment, feeling like an idiot for not grasping such a necessary precaution himself. Shortly after dinner last night, he had rushed to the bank, arriving just before it closed, and took out a stupid amount of cash: his entire account in nineteen one dollar bills, ten nickels, and five dimes.

Swarm was still staring at him, his eye wide, like he wasn't sure he trusted Kyle to not get himself mugged. More covertly this time, Kyle extracted a few nickels, then stuffed his wallet deep in his front pant pocket. Wanting to erase his shame from being so oblivious, Kyle starting heading toward the lodging house again, concentrating on the fact he'd be able to sleep soon.

The lodging house was dingy and old, like all the other buildings in Milan, although it seemed clean enough. Also, it was easily the tallest building in town, being four stories tall. Kyle was going to keep his positive attitude alive – he had survived the first night on the run, after all, and now that he had a guide, things would be much easier from here on out. Nothing would be polished and new, but he had been expecting that. He could tough it out, he determined, kicking the luxurious memories of the last hotel he stayed in from his thoughts. Adventurers didn't need room service.

When they entered the lobby, the young woman behind the front desk lethargically tugged her eyes from a paperback to gape at them, like she was annoyed they were here.

"Can I get a room?" Kyle requested, careful not to let agitation creep into his voice.

"Single five cents, loft ten. How long you stayin'?" she asked.

"Oh, a loft then. And um, two days?" he responded tentatively, looking to Swarm for confirmation.

Nodding, Swarm said, "Yeah, 'least two."

Kyle placed four nickels on the dingy counter. The woman rummaged through a drawer in the desk and handed him the key to room 308.

"Breakfast in the kitchen from eight till ten," she stated flatly, already back to reading the book.

"I'll be heading over to library I s'pose. You want me to come knock on your door if it gets too late?" Swarm offered once they stepped into hallway, away from the woman.

"If I don't show up by two, yes, that'd be fine. It's room three-oh-eight," Kyle replied, showing him the key.

"Welp, I'll be seein' ya," he said, stuffing his hands in his jacket and turning around.

"Bye." The door clattered shut behind him. From outside, Swarm offered a short wave, but Kyle was too slow to process the gesture, and by the time he managed to raise his hand in response, Swarm was already out of sight. Kyle tossed his satchel over his back and headed down the hall to the stairwell.

In his room, the clock on the wall read half past six. Admittedly, the word "loft" had sort of impressed him, but there was nothing impressive about this room: the maroon striped wallpaper was peeling in the corners and the furniture – a single chair between the curtained windows, a dresser, and the frames of the two beds – was very old, antique-like, but in subpar condition. He figured the only thing that qualified this room as a loft was the fact it had two beds, which was just a waste of ten cents, but it didn't really matter to Kyle. There was a porcelain pitcher in a bowl and a sponge on the dresser, and Kyle groaned, drawing the conclusion there probably wasn't running water for bathing – the bathroom around the corner hadn't been a powder room; that had been the _only _bathroom. But at least there was that, he told himself, though it was a struggle to not let the pessimism manifest when he really wanted to shower.

He tossed his bag on the bed, pausing for a moment to tell himself they surely must wash the sheets between customers. From his satchel, he obtained one of the fresh bars of white soap he'd packed from home and washed his face with the pitcher water, rubbing it dry with his shirt, because he didn't trust the likes of that sponge. Looking in the mirror, which needed a good wipe-down, he wondered if his scrawny reflection seemed more adult-like than it had been yesterday. If it did, it was only because he was so tired, with dark bags under his eyes. He went back to the bed and changed into his red summer pajamas, thinking hobos probably didn't wear pajamas to bed, just slept in their ratty clothes, but this set felt good and he liked them, so he could just be a pajama-wearing hobo for all anyone dared to care. The mattress was not nearly as soft or comforting as his was at home, but Kyle fell asleep faster than he had in years, since elementary school maybe, he speculated, drifting off.

…

_Who the hell was knocking on the door?_ For a terrifying split second, he feared it was a cop, one from Chicago who'd come all the way to Tennessee to drag him home, but then he remembered Swarm, how he said he'd come and wake him up if he slept too late into the afternoon. Shit, it was almost quarter to four! He ripped the door open just before Swarm was about to knock again, his curled fingers poised in mid-air.

"Sorry," Kyle said, hoping an apology wasn't too heavy-handed for the circumstance.

"What? No, uh – I'm sorry for waking you up," he said, his words spilling on top of each other. Then, Swarm's expression was rendered deeply, almost comically perplexed, and Kyle may have laughed if he didn't promptly, humiliatingly, comprehend Swarm was trying to wrap his head around his crimson silk pajamas.

"Shit. I'll be ready in a minute," Kyle murmured, feeling his face get hot. Rudely, and without giving Swarm a chance to respond, Kyle shut the door in an instant, though carefully enough to avoid a trace of a slam. As he squashed the incriminating night clothes back into his bag, he painfully resolved he'd open the door again coolly, unbothered, even though he really wanted to crawl under the bed and wallow in shame. His wool slacks and cotton dress shirt from last night felt acutely pre-worn, not at all the way clothes should feel when you first put them on. This opinion, in the same vein that pajamas were needed for sleeping, was the kind of prissy unhobo-like attitude that he needed to eradicate, and as quickly as possible. Once he was properly clothed, Kyle twisted the doorknob open with an obtrusive, rusty-sounding _click_. Swarm was leaning against the wall, a book splayed open in his hand. He raised his head to study Kyle and the book's pages collapsed over his thumb pressed to the binding.

"Alright. I'm good," Kyle declared, deliberating if he ought to apologize again, if only for those goddamn pajamas. He thought better of it and promptly flipped around to lock the door.

"You hungry?" Swarm asked as they headed towards the stairwell.

Only then realizing how empty his stomach felt, Kyle admitted, "Ugh, yes, starving."

"I don't really wanna deal with this kitchen here though," Swarm said, lowering his voice. "There's a pretty decent place nearby, anyway. Hack oughta be there soon, if he's not already." He breathed the last part out heavily, shutting his eye tightly before suddenly flitting it open so wide his lashes grazed the skin under his brow.

Cutting the brief eye contact – it was too unexpected, too intimate – Kyle stared straight ahead, into the approaching lobby, and said, "Sure, that's fine." If Swarm didn't want to, he certainly wasn't about to insist they stay and eat at the lodging house, even if Kyle wasn't enthusiastic about being around Hack again. Shooting an askance glance into the kitchen at the end of the opposite hallway, which appeared empty save an old hobo hunched over at the table, Kyle assumed they simply must have terrible food. Wherever they were going for dinner, he just hoped he would have the opportunity to slash some kosher rules. Getting excited about this reminded him of his parents, and he pictured them crying on the sofa in the parlor, holding each other, Kyle's note crumpled in his mother's trembling hands. His stomach lurched up towards his diaphragm, like he'd been punched from the inside his body. He rerouted his thoughts, replaying an actual scene from the parlor: his parents and Adina's parents on opposite sofas, refilling each other's wine glasses, spewing infuriating bullshit about how adorable it was that Kyle was so "sweetly awkward" around Adina. That was the night he chucked the jade paperweight his parents had brought him back from China at his bedroom wall and had to do some redecorating later to hide the conspicuous, angular dent.

It was still satisfactorily bright out, but the sun looked hot surrounded by dreary streaks of cloud, like it was already tired, more than ready to set, although there would still be a good five or so hours of daylight. The air was much warmer than what was typical for late May, instantly prompting Kyle to digest the incredulous fact that he was a couple hundred miles south of Chicago. And what a relief too! They'd never find him so many states away, even if his parents offered a fifty dollar reward and had the entire police force on the lookout. Feeling deviously chipper about this, he hopped down the steps of the lodging house onto the dusty afternoon street. En route to the restaurant, Swarm naturally leading the way, Kyle tried to be subtle about discerning the title of the book still hanging limply in his hand.

He figured, since he was curious enough, to just ask. "Say, what book is that?"

"Oh – it's _Five Dialogues_," he said, raising the slim, withered paperback.

"As in, Socrates?" Kyle asked, hoping he didn't sound as surprised as he was. Somehow, he had expected all the books in the library of a town like Milan to be about herding cattle, or making pies from your own freshly-picked strawberries.

"Yup." Swarm slowed his pace, staring fixedly on the worn lettering on the cover. "I don't know a whole lot about philosophy, but I read just about anything I can get my hands on. I didn't make it too far with school, so I'm tryin' to compensate, I s'pose," he continued, trailing off.

"Well, that's good," Kyle appended, finding it the only appropriate response. Ashamedly, his education had always been something he had taken for granted, at times even angrily considered a _constraint _securely fitted on him by his parents, who regularly boasted to his relatives what a fine lawyer he would make someday. On the rails, Kyle presumed, not having completed high school was probably typical. Truly, he was glad to discover Swarm valued learning as well, because although Kyle had at times hated school very much, he did enjoy learning.

They arrived at the restaurant, a dingy establishment with the words "Bix's Inn," in chipping paint on a sign chained to the edge of the awning. The tables inside were empty, some in the back with the chairs still flipped upside down on top of them. Kyle noticed Hack sitting cross-legged on a bar stool, a glass teetering nonchalantly in his grip. He was with somebody else, a guy with wispy black hair who looked like he wished he weren't there.

"Heya, look who came to see us, Pearly!" Hack shouted across the restaurant, shoving the other guy in the shoulder.

"Oh Jesus," Swarm muttered under his breath, squeezing the skin on the bridge of his nose between his dirty fingernails. Kyle wished he'd hurry up and fill him in on what the hell was going on.

"That's it. I told you if you called me that one more fucking time I was goin' back to work," he said, glaring daggers at Hack.

"Now, c'mon, you know there ain't no more dishes to wash. And dontcha wanna meet my new friend, Handle? Huh? _Craaaaaig_," Hack droned, pawing at Craig's shoulder.

"Fine," Craig grumbled, taking a long swig from his glass.

Hack motioned for Swarm and Kyle to come to the bar. Slumping his shoulders, Swarm gravitated to the stool next to Hack. Kyle slinked behind him, taking the seat to Swarm's right.

"They still got Irish turkey here?" Swarm asked.

"Yes, they still got Irish turkey here," Craig quipped in a bitter, mocking tone.

"Aw, Pear – _Craig_," Hack corrected himself, "don't be so mean to Swarmy."

Opportunely, the bartender appeared from the ratty curtain behind the bar. "Can I get you kids somethin'?"

"Irish turkey and a glass of ink, please," Swarm said.

"Same here," Kyle requested, since they had not been given menus. Irish turkey sounded delightful, and this kind of ink surely wasn't the type you filled pens with.

"Comin' right up," the bartender said, almost sarcastically.

"So, Swarm, looks like you found yerself a lamb," Craig alleged snidely once the bartender disappeared. Despite the fact he was still vastly unacquainted with hobo jargon, Kyle understood Craig was referring to him, and if he weren't still so frazzled with the unfamiliarity of his new life on the road, he would have said something, stuck up for himself. But then again, maybe not – Craig was scary looking, in a mean way, with sunken, smirking eyes and an overly sharp bone structure.

Sighing exhaustedly, though with a definite edge of irritation, Swarm said to Hack, "Why do you bring this son of a bitch here?"

"Why can't we all just get along?" Hack sputtered, choking on the laughter trying to squeeze out from the back of his throat.

Swarm pressed his palm to his right eye, saying, "I'm gonna take my food when it comes and go eat outside." He eyed Kyle apologetically, as if to ask if he minded they leave.

"That's fine," Kyle said. Craig snickered. In an obvious and pathetic attempt to change the subject, Hack started rambling about Chicago, how lively and big its main stem was, and how he and Swarm had made a fair bit of cash up in "The Big Town," making cigars over the past few months. Actually, Kyle was intrigued by this, almost couldn't believe that Hack and Swarm had been in Chicago right along with him, at least for the past three weeks since Kyle had returned from prep school. He wondered if he'd ever unknowingly seen them before, although it was doubtful, since he didn't often venture far from the safety of his wealthy neighborhood.

Balancing two plates, the bartender returned, depositing them on the bar. It definitely wasn't turkey, Kyle realized, analyzing the steaming food. There was cabbage involved, but the meat was darker than any turkey he'd ever seen. Before Kyle could ask what it was, the bartender ducked behind the bar, making clanging noises, and then there was the sound of liquid being poured into a glass. He stood up again, placing a glass half full of something red – wine, Kyle guessed – next to each of their plates. Lifting the glass to sniff its contents, Kyle wasn't sure how he felt about his assumption being correct.

"Sir, we just had a change of plans and hafta head out now, so you got any paper plates we can have?" Swarm asked the bartender, who didn't look the least bit happy to hear his request.

"Plates, yeah, no cups though. Charge is a penny for each of ya, by the way," he said, heading behind the curtain again.

Amazingly, Swarm downed the entirety of the drink in two gulps. Kyle, understanding their hurry, and really not wanting to stick around Bix's goddamn Inn any longer, tried to do the same, despite his lack of experience in consuming alcoholic beverages. He managed to swallow the harsh, cheap-tasting liquid before the bartender returned with the plates. Thankfully, he didn't make a spectacle of himself, although he immediately felt incredibly dizzy upon setting the empty glass back down. It was a good thing he'd tossed those nickels in his pocket earlier so he wouldn't have to be exaggeratedly discrete about retrieving money from his wallet. The bartender took their money and returned Kyle four pennies worth of change. In sync, Kyle and Swarm flopped the cabbage-coated meat from the inn's dishware onto the paper plates, then practically bolted. Kyle wondered if Swarm felt as ridiculous as he did, hustling past Hack and Craig (who sniggered again), carrying food on paper plates, as if they were waiters at the restaurant. At least they were getting the hell out of there.

"I hate that fucker. He washes dishes at the lodging house, so I thought I was smart for goin' to Bix's to avoid him," Swarm griped in a low voice once they were a block away from the restaurant, their speed slowed to a more relaxed shuffle.

"What did he mean about me being your lamb?" Kyle asked, the question pooling from his mouth before he took the moment to consider if he ought to ask, or if he even wanted to know the answer.

"Oh Jesus, _that_. Hold on, let's get outta the stem first."

Out past the edge of town, they settled on a fallen log shallowly within a sparse cluster of woods. Swarm whacked a thick orange mushroom away, uprooting it, before sitting down right where it had been, apparently unbothered by potential remnants of fungi.

"Want a fork?" Swarm asked, whipping two out from his bag.

"Oh, um, yes. Thank you." Kyle wasn't sure why Swarm had forks, but he accepted one readily, relieved he wouldn't have to struggle to find a polite way of eating without utensils. Prodding at the mystery meat, Kyle convinced himself it was beef. It was actually really good, but this was likely largely due to the fact that he was extremely hungry. The meal not being kosher was absolutely another contributing factor.

Just as Kyle was telling himself not to eat too fast lest he get nauseous, Swarm stabbed his fork into his half-eaten dinner and exhaled sharply through his nose. "I guess you don't know much about bein' on the road yet. But, ah, there're some old tramps who take advantage of young kids, get them to beg for 'em, 'cuz they get more sympathy than the old 'bos. That's not the worst of what they make 'em do, but I don't really wanna get into the rest. Sometimes they call 'em 'wolves' and the kids 'lambs.' It's not something most of us want to think happens as much as it pro'ly does, but Craig's a sick son of a bitch who likes to make those kinda jokes."

Kyle wanted to go back and punch Craig in his bony snake face. Or more realistically, he wanted Swarm to go back and do it. Morbidly, he also wanted to know more about the decrepit brand of "wolf" hoboes. Instead, he swallowed his anger and curiosity with his last bite of dinner and asked, "How come he hates you so much?"

Swarm twisted the fork into the remaining chunk of his meat, its juice seeping out over the untouched cabbage. "Well, he used to catch out with us, and last summer we were down south and we got snared, y'know, arrested, and he was sore as hell about it – wouldn't let up that it was my fault, even though we both knew it was Hack's for being such a noisy drunk. But even before that he didn't like me much. Anyway, he said he was just gonna work for a little while, but it's been a year now and he's still here washing dishes. Hack was real mopey when he stopped ridin' with us, and I'm pretty sure he's tried to convince him to come back, but he hasn't budged. Not that I'm complaining."

"Sounds like a real ass," Kyle commented, distracted from his animosity towards Craig by how enchanted he was that Swarm was rather nonchalant about spending a night in jail. Kyle found himself consistently impressed by Swarm, who was a real, hardened vagabond, but also charmingly scholastic. Not to mention, he was decent-looking for a hobo, with healthy, clear skin and a clean-shaven face. If it weren't for the eye patch, he might even look boyish. Hell, give him a bath and one could probably call him handsome.

"Yeah," Swarm agreed half-heartedly.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Kyle wanted to ask Swarm a lot of things, like how long he'd been on the road, if he was a runaway too, and how he lost his eye, but he couldn't bring himself to verbalize such inquiries.

"Hey, Handle, or wait – you didn't like Hack's moniker for ya? You said your name was Kyle, right?" Swarm asked.

"It's fine I guess, but you can call me Kyle. If you want," he said, adding the last part quickly.

"Okay," Swarm said warmly. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why'd you leave home?"

"Oh. Um," Kyle trailed off, wanting to answer properly, but not knowing where to start.

"No, it's alright, forget I asked. It's not really my business, anyway," Swarm interjected, mumbling.

Kyle shook his head. "I had a fight with my parents," he said, aware of how pathetic it sounded. "After I finish college, they want me to marry this girl. Well, I didn't know they wanted me to _marry _her until yesterday. She's alright, I just don't care for her much, and I think she's kind of an idiot, so that's what I told them. They weren't too happy to hear it." He wanted to elaborate, to detail his mother's seething rampage, if only to make running away over a family argument sound sufficiently credible.

"You were goin' to _college_?" Swarm exclaimed, astonished.

"Y-yes. But that was the other thing – I had to study pre-law. Then go to law school, so I could someday take over my father's company. But I just – I don't _want _to." How ridiculous, how petty he must sound. If Swarm didn't think he was an idiot for running away for such frivolous reasons, he must believe he was crazy, a complete fruitcake.

"I guess it musta been pretty bad for you to wanna run away. You don't wanna go home, do ya?" Swarm asked, laughing a little, though waveringly, punctured with hesitation.

"No, not – anytime soon, anyway."

Swarm set his plate on the log, empty now save for the stained cabbage, and shoved himself off the log to sit on the ground. "That's good for me, 'cuz I like you a whole helluva lot more than Craig. It's been a while since me and Hack caught out with anybody else." Swarm pulled a dingy tin case from his canvas bag and snapped it open, removing a cigarette.

"Oh shit, you want one?" he asked, stopping himself from stashing the case back in his bag, twisting around to face Kyle.

"I'm good, thanks." Hopefully, eventually, he'd become a seasoned tramp, a sharply self-aware vagrant who spent his days hopping over the rooftops of speeding boxcars, his nights huddled around a campfire, guzzling cheap rum and smoking cigarettes with his hobo pals. It was only day one though, and he'd managed to down that glass of acid wine successfully, so he didn't want to push his luck with smoking too.

In one swift stroke, Swarm swiped a match ablaze to light the cigarette. Then, he shook the match, extinguishing it, and flicked it carelessly into the brush.

"How long have you been hopping trains?" Kyle inquired, trusting this was appropriate to ask since he had told Swarm why he ran away.

Exhaling a bright white cloud of smoke, Swarm replied, "Almost four years now, I think. Time sure does fly."

"Four years! How old are you?" Four years ago, Kyle had been secretly crying himself to sleep, terrified of having to move to upstate New York to attend prep school all by himself. It was impossible Swarm was much older than him, and four years ago, _he'd_ been toughing it out on the open road.

"Eighteen, nineteen in October. You?"

"Eighteen. Um. Tomorrow," he said, having forgotten in the wake of recent, life-changing events that tomorrow was the twenty sixth of May, his birthday. Guiltily, he remembered straightaway the bag of fresh cherries in the kitchen at home, waiting to be dried and whipped into filling for the hamantaschen his mother made for his birthday ever year.

"Tomorrow!" Swarm exclaimed, shooting his head over his shoulder.

"Yup."

"We should celebrate tonight then, since it's possible we're heading out tomorrow night. But I'll have to ask Hack next time we run into him. So anyway, you wanna get plastered?"

"Yeah," Kyle said, grinning broadly despite himself. "That sounds pretty good."

On the way back to town, Kyle didn't feel quite like himself, though not in a bad way. At prep school, he knew there were boys who snuck out of the dorms to go bar-hopping in town, and as much as he hated them, hated seeing them race across the lawn below his window, snickering and laughing in not-so-hushed voices, he could at least admit to himself he very badly wanted to be amongst them. After Eric was expelled for rewiring the school's phone lines for eavesdropping purposes, Kyle's only remaining friend, if he could call him as much, was a self-righteous British kid named Gregory, who could have easily scaled the social hierarchy and left Kyle behind if he weren't such a snob. Now here Kyle was in Milan, Tennessee, a whole different world, about to divulge in those booze-induced shenanigans he once dreamed of with an amicable guy who had said he _liked_ him, didn't just tolerate him like he was sure Gregory did. This was all just putting him a bit out of his element, but he was enjoying himself immensely.

The stem was a lot livelier now: a cluster of men outside of Bix's speaking so loudly to each other Kyle wasn't sure if they were just chatting or having an argument, an old hobo huddled against a mailbox playing a harmonica, a kid much younger than himself scampering by, who was, bewilderingly, smoking a cigarette.

"We can get real wine or whiskey or whatever you want at the drugstore in the nice part of town. It's not too far, and they got donuts there too," Swarm explained.

"Wine, then?" Whiskey sounded too extreme.

"Sure," Swarm agreed. "It's _your_ birthday, after all."

At the druggist's, they got the biggest bottle for the cheapest price, a three cent white wine labeled as a tonic which also claimed to "invigorate the blood and promote healthy living." Swarm hardly argued when Kyle resolved to pay for it, though he was adamant about purchasing the donuts.

"Are you going to stay in the lodging house tonight?" Kyle inquired as they skirted through the stem, back to the quiet fields surrounding the town. The sky was just beginning to dim, muting the outside world in a vague, sleepy purple.

"Nah. Pro'ly just gonna sleep outside since it oughta be warm enough. This far south, anyway," Swarm responded after swallowing a mouthful of plain glazed donut. A flake stuck to his upper lip. Wetly, he licked it up.

"If you want," Kyle began carefully, "you can stay in my room, since it has two beds."

"Oh? You don't mind?" His brow shot up, disappearing behind his long, sloppy bangs.

Kyle was about to say he wouldn't have offered if he minded, but he feared that mind sound a bit fresh, so he said, "No, of course not."

"Well, that's awfully kind of you," he said demurely, as if he were complimenting some good deed Kyle had done.

Shrugging, Kyle supplied, "I want you to," though it left his mouth sounding more like a question.

"Alright, then. Thank you," he said, his lips quivering into a small smile. Dry, uncertain laughter cracked in his throat.

They returned to same patch of woods and sat with their backs against the log, passing the bottle back and forth, steadily emptying it as the sky settled into an array of deep oranges and soft pinks. Kyle was feeling quite drunk, giddy and progressively comfortable, thinking himself a true rail tramp for being so completely drunk on a Wednesday night. He was glad too that the wine from the drugstore was more palatable, even increasingly delectable, than the bitter, watered-down variety from the restaurant bar.

"Did you run away too?" Kyle inquired once the mood settled, having caught his breath from howling over Swarm's tale of the time Craig got so sunburnt last summer he looked like a newborn piglet.

"Sorta," Swarm explained, cradling the bottle in his lap. "My dad mighta been too drunk to notice I'd left though. After my mom died, my sister left and got married, so it was just me and him. He stopped caring about the farm, then stopped caring about everything else, so. I just left." He ground his cigarette into the earth. Burning flecks of tobacco popped into the air and floated down haphazardly.

Somehow, Kyle had acquired the naïve presumption that Swarm had ran away to scour the country seeking adventure. Based on no actual truth, he'd developed this theory Swarm had been an orphan, too free to be burdened by the demands of family and relatives, belonging only to the open road. The somber reality was hardly comparable to such stupidly poetic assumptions. At a loss for what to say, but compelled to say something, he murmured, "I'm sorry."

"Aw, nah, c'mon, don't be sad about something like that," Swarm said, leaning over to grip Kyle's shoulder, his tone definitely amused. Suddenly serious, he added, "And, I hope this don't sound too stupid, but one of the reasons I've always been fine with being a road kid is 'cuz I know my mom's up there – a dolphin in the sky."

"Umm. What?" Until then, Kyle really had been sympathetically on key with Swarm's speech.

"The constellation. Delphinus," Swarm explained, his hand still heavy and overly warm on Kyle's shoulder, which was distracting, and a little invasive, but he didn't hate it, not really. Swarm looked dramatically concerned, like he was very worried Kyle didn't know his astronomy.

"Oh, hah, I see. I know that one, yes." He had only read about it in his pocket astronomy book though, never having bothered to investigate the little constellation in the real night sky.

They left the empty bottle in the woods and Kyle didn't even care. Staggering through the fresh dark on the way back to the lodging house, he was beginning to feel sleepy again, the combination of shuffling to and from town all day and the alcohol alike taking a toll on his stamina. Swarm had his head tilted way back, focusing on the sky.

"She's easier to see later in the summer," he said.

Kyle looked up too, blearily trying to identify some constellations, but the sheer brightness of the stars was too compelling for him to bother connecting them, although wait, yes, over there was the Big Dipper, hanging idly in the panorama.

The stem was empty again, the only evidence of life people's silhouettes, tall in the windows, hazy against the yellow glow of electric lights. There was no whirring of streetcar cables, no automobiles bustling angrily through the street. Milan said goodnight when the sky went dark. Through the night, only the tiny flicker of the candle-lit lamppost would intrude the quiet. At the front desk of the lodging house, the woman from yesterday was asleep, and her face, half obscured by her hair spilling out from the failing up do, was pressed to an open book.

Sleepily, they struggled up the three flights of steps to the loft, Swarm giggling drunkenly to himself as he occasionally brushed up against Kyle. "I'm so glad you're gonna be catchin' out with us. It's been gettin' real dull, just me and Hack," he said, slurring the end of each word to the beginning of the next.

"I dunno what the hell I would've done if I didn't find you guys. I would've been absolutely fucked. _Fucked!_" Kyle exclaimed loudly, both of them snickering when someone pounded on the wall from inside his room, not having any of it.

Kyle fiddled with the lock and the instant it clicked open, they burst into the room, falling towards the beds. Without even kicking off his boots, Swarm landed face down on the bed nearest the door.

"This wasn't your bed, was it?" he asked, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Nope," Kyle said, discarding his boots on the way to his bed. He crawled beneath the sheets, pulling the thin quilt up over his shoulder. Moaning, Swarm twisted to face him, the eye-patch slightly displaced. Jerking is arm free, he repositioned it immediately.

Whispering, Kyle asked, "What happened to your eye?"

"Had an accident with a spoon," Swarm said jokingly, which was a disappointment, though guiltily, Kyle figured he probably shouldn't have asked. It was rude. In his drunken state, he panicked, not wanting Swarm to think he was an inconsiderate heathen of a city-slicker for having the indecency to ask such a thing.

"Sorry. That's a lie. I'll tell you the real story some other time, since it's a long one," he added, his words breaking halfway with an unenergetic yawn. He scratched the corner of his jaw, then tossed his arm over the side of the bed, letting it hang stilly.

"Alright."

Opening his eye drowsily, Swarm murmured with blissed-out fatigue, "Hey, Happy Birthday."

"Ha, thank you," Kyle said, digging his head into the pillow, knowing he would be asleep very soon. His eyelids drooped shut and he let the steady strum of Swarm's breathing lull him into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Hi again! First of all, I would like to give a big thanks to Holly for beta-ing this for me! I've been working slowly and steadily on this chapter and still learning a lot about train-hopping and hobos.

* * *

Kyle's first thought upon waking was that he must have slept through his alarm and now he was going to be late to class. He was about to yell at Gregory for not waking him up until he cracked an eye open and realized, alarmingly, he wasn't in his dorm room at Everly's, and the boy curled up on the other bed wasn't his pretentious ass of a roommate either, it was Swarm. Yesterday – or no, wait, the day before now, he ran away from home. The realization made him suddenly aware of a horrendous pounding enslaving his whole head. The wine. This must be what a hangover feels like. Fucking hell. Thank God he thought to pack that half bottle of aspirin. He was still too sleepy to really get up yet, but the throbbing was so bothersome he dragged himself over the side of the bed to dig through his satchel for the bottle, swallowing two chalky pills dry. He threw himself back on the bed.

Swarm was drooling on his pillow, his brow furrowed deeply and twitching occasionally. A bad dream, maybe. What types of nightmares did hobos have? Horrible accidents like getting decapitated by a train or having an extremity dismembered by a boxcar door, he theorized. Kyle shivered, staring at Swarm's vaguely distressed expression, studying that eye patch. Maybe there _had_ been a spoon involved – as in, his eye had gotten infected somehow, swelled to an incredible size, and he had no choice but to pluck it out with an old soup spoon. Or – and was this more realistic? – he got shot, right in the face. But wouldn't that have killed him? Obviously, Jesus Christ. As badly as Kyle ached to know the real reason, he ordered himself to not ask again.

At nine thirty, when he couldn't tolerate the crusty feeling of his clothes anymore, Kyle crawled out of bed, went down the hall to use the restroom, and deliberated taking an – ugh – _sponge bath_ back in the room. Except Swarm was in there, and even if he was still sleeping, he could essentially wake up at any given moment, his first sight of the day being Kyle's gimpy, stark-naked body. That would be a disaster, but he was really desperate for some sense cleanliness. Afterward, he'd be able to put on his one other, unsoiled set of clothes. And now that he was craving it, the notion of feeling clean again was too tantalizing for him to simply forget, so once he got back in the room, he got the bar of soap from his satchel, poured the pitcher of water into the bowl, and shed his clothes, eyes glued to Swarm the whole time, watching for signs of rousing. Even though Swarm had turned and was unfortunately facing Kyle now, he seemed to still be sleeping. Kyle squeezed the sponge in the water, then rubbed the soap over it to accumulate some suds. He started wiping himself down as quickly and as quietly as possible. Funnily, he felt as nervous washing himself with Swarm sleeping only feet away as he had when he was hiding from the cop the other night. Now he just had to rinse the sponge, get all this soap off and –

Swarm cracked his eye open.

Kyle froze. He flung his arm down to cover himself with the sponge, inadvertently squeezing it tight. Loud drops of water splashed on the floor. Confusedly, Swarm stared for a moment, then his eye snapped all the way open.

"Um. Sorry," Swarm mumbled, immediately rolling onto his side to face the other way.

Despite the fact he was coated in cool water, Kyle felt his body burning up. His head spun, the hangover reaffirming itself. He let out a long, shaky breath and closed his eyes, concentrating on willing himself to not pass out. Eventually, he washed off the soapy residue from his skin, sort of wanting to cry. Hobos weren't prudes. He dug out a clean towel from one of the armoire's cabinets and rubbed himself dry, really regretting trying to get cleaned up in the first place. At the very least, he should have used the sink in the bathroom. The shame and lingering hangover made it impossible to enjoy how comforting it was to put on his clean tweed pants and matching waistcoat.

Humiliated, he murmured, "I'm ah – finished, now."

Slowly, Swarm rolled back. "So, uh." He blinked, then swallowed. "You hungry? Craig's most likely working now since it's breakfast hours, but I can run down and grab some bread or something and bring it back up for us."

"Or I can, since I'm already dressed," Kyle offered, though the prospect of facing Craig alone made him nervous.

"_Or_ we both can," Swarm said, smiling a little. He hoisted himself up, flinging his legs over the side of the bed, and put his face in his hands, yawning. He got up and staggered past Kyle into the hall. From behind the closed door, Kyle listened to his footsteps until he heard the distant _click_ of the bathroom door. He went to his bed, tossing himself face-down over the twisted sheets.

His life was a never-ending series of avoidable embarrassments. This was primarily because he was an easily embarrassed person. One way or another, he had to quit being such a prude. Undressing in front of Gregory used to bother him, and it had bothered him that it bothered him. Mostly, he hated how thin he was, but he had other frustrations with his body too, like his hair, and the birthmark below his collarbone, which was ridiculously shaped exactly like the state of Florida. Or, as Eric used to say, like "some sorta freak dong."

Undressing around others supplied an _extrinsic_ variant of humiliation too. This type differed from typical (intrinsic) embarrassment, the mere existence of parts of himself he was displeased with. Extrinsic embarrassment relied in part on comparisons to others' qualities, but it was denser than that, and those qualities seemed to be _superimposed _on him. That was what made it embarrassment, and not just envy. So, getting caught naked in the middle of a goddamn sponge bath detailed the intrinsic type, extrinsic type, _and_ the element of surprise, which was never healthy.

It occurred to him that when Swarm came back, he might want to bathe as well. Kyle would have to leave, of course, but he let himself fashion an imaginary situation in which Swarm was about to strip down and just as Kyle was heading for the door, he'd ask where he was going. So, he would stay instead, lounging on the bed and nonchalantly flipping through a book or magazine while Swarm dragged that same sponge over his tanner skin. If by some chance this hypothetical scenario ever manifested, Kyle could not allow himself to stay, for he would never be able to maintain the appropriate level of indifference: he'd stare, and intently enough to make Swarm aware of it, _or_ to distract himself from doing so and avoid such awkwardness, he'd attempt discussion. The latter could be more damning, for he'd certainly fumble over the fine details of Socrates' dialogue with Euthyphro, preoccupied with analyzing the muscle definition of Swarm's arms. He wanted to make a complete assessment of his body, if only to make himself hate his own more. He had to stop this – by spending so much time running in circles with his thoughts he was making himself unnecessarily nervous, not to mention self-conscious. He'd absentmindedly tugged a hangnail way too far down with his teeth and now it was bleeding.

Swarm came back cupping something in his left palm. As it turned out, it was liquid soap from the bathroom. "I'm gonna shave first, if that's alright?"

"Y-yes, of course," Kyle said dazedly, flung back into the reality where Swarm was smearing liquid soap all over his face.

Swarm crouched down to rifle through his bag, standing back up to face the armoire once he dug out a modern shaving razor. "We need to find Hack at one point today," he said, peeling the razor across his skin. "It's about another six hours to New Or'lins. I'm getting tired of the city, though. Felt like I was in Chicago forever. I'd like to get out to Texas before too long."

"What's in Texas?"

"Wheat fields. I know Hack don't seem it, but he's a real spike pitcher. I was getting antsy making cigars all winter, so I'm looking forward to working the fields again. Texas in the summer sure is hot though." He swished the razor in the porcelain bowl.

"What do you, ah, do exactly?" Kyle asked.

"In the fields?"

"Yeah."

Before answering, Swarm wiped his face clean with the same sponge that had been pressed to Kyle's cock only minutes ago. "We just shock the grain as the binder cuts it. Not much to it. Or, you might be able to get a threshing job, since most farms down there don't got combines. Point is, there's always a job in the fields if you're looking."

"I'd like to give it a shot," Kyle said, his voice betraying him by wavering a bit.

"S'not really so bad." Swarm threw his arm over his shoulder to scratch his back. "So, you ready?"

"Yeah."

…

Naturally, Craig had to be working. The only other person in the kitchen was a fidgety kid cleaning out a coffee urn.

"Hey, Tweek, looks like you're gonna have to brew another pot," Craig grumbled. "Goddamn you two."

"What?" Swarm said flatly.

Craig turned back around to the sink, dunking his hands in the soapy water. "I was just thinking how disappointed I was I didn't get a chance to scrape Swarm's headlights off our fine china. But anyway, now that you're here, tell Tweek what you want."

"We're not planning on stay–"

"Then why'd you come?" Craig interrupted.

"Sh-should I make another pot or not!?" Tweek spat out.

"We don't even want coffee!" Swarm said. "Well, wait, did you want coffee, Handle?"

"Oh, no," Kyle said. Although masked by the clang of silverware against dishes, Craig definitely sniggered.

Swarm cleared his throat. "You got _bread _or something?"

With a sudsy butter knife, Craig gestured to the box labeled "Bread" on the counter to his left.

Swarm went around the table to the counter, regarding Craig warily as he opened the breadbox. "So, ah. I'm gonna be taking this," he said, a loaf clasped in his hand.

"Be my guest," Craig said insincerely, still pointing the knife.

Swarm stared at the knife, then at Craig, squinting at him incredulously. Shaking his head, he turned around and walked past Kyle to exit the kitchen, flicking his head back to see if he was following.

"Shit. Pro'ly shoulda asked him if he's seen Hack," Swarm said, breaking the loaf of bread into halves and spilling crumbs down onto the steps. Kyle took his half, biting into it immediately. It was stale, but he was hungry.

"Sorry I called you Handle back there. It's just that most 'bos use a moniker anyway, and well, I didn't think you'd want those two shmucks knowing your real name," Swarm said once they were in their room again. He sat down with his back to the side of his bed and went back to eating.

Joining him on the floor, Kyle said, "No, it's fine. Actually, thank you, then, for that. Um. Can I ask you what your real name is? It isn't actually Swarm, is it?"

"Ha, no." He laughed shallowly. "It's Stan. Well, Stan_ley_, but I just went by Stan."

"Stan," Kyle repeated absently. It was easier to say than Swarm and softer, cleaner-sounding too, one swift simple syllable instead of a laborious mixture of consonants.

Swarm stopped chewing. "Wow."

"What?"

"I just haven't heard anyone say my name in a long time. It's like – hmm. Dusting off something old."

"Is that bad?" Kyle asked.

"No. I think I've missed it, being called that. Hey," he said, propping his arm up on the edge of the bed, his elbow very nearly grazing Kyle's ear, "you can call me Stan if you want, since I'm calling you Kyle. But just make sure it's just when we're alone, okay?"

"Okay," Kyle said, his voice almost a whisper.

They collected their bags and went down to the lobby to check out. Even though it was only ten o'clock, it was already very warm outside, the air dry and still. They wandered the stem and easily found Hack outside the library.

"Did they kick you out again?" Stan asked.

"Yup," Hack said, beaming, like he was proud of this.

Stan sighed tiredly. "They don't want you to just sit there and sleep. At least get a big book and hide behind it if you're gonna do that. 'Sides, you're making us _all_ look bad."

"Yeah, yeah. So we catchin' out tonight or what?"

"That's the plan. I don't wanna be in New Or'lins too long though," Stan said.

Hack frowned. He opened his mouth as if to object, but he glanced at Kyle and closed it. "A'ight, we'll see. We'll see," he muttered, grumbling.

They spent the rest of the day killing time around town with Hack. The hours crawled. Kyle was anxious to get out of Milan, but he knew they'd have to wait until it was dark, when it was safe enough to catch a train without being noticed. The three of them went to Bix's again, during the dinner rush this time, and it seemed like every hobo in the whole town was there. They got gump and growlers – chicken and beer – and spent a long time there even after they finished eating, Stan and Hack talking about their winter in Chicago. Stan had attended a semester at the Hobo College, where they gave free lectures on politics, law, and rhetoric, among other subjects, all of which were actually of very substantial academic merit. Kyle was aware the makeshift school held debates with the University of Chicago, a team of hobos versus the university team, and regretfully, he had laughed at that when he first read about it in the paper last year, but Stan was both quite versed and well-read; he could have made an admirable opponent for those college brats if he had been on the team. He was more partial to the literature lectures though, from the sound of it. For the most part, Kyle only listened, sipping his second can of beer and periodically looking out the window to gage how dark it was.

"Welp," Hack said, snuffing his cigarette out in the ashtray, "I'm gonna go say g'bye to Pearly before we leave."

Kyle was grateful for the few minutes alone with Stan while they waited outside the lodging house for Hack to say goodbye to Craig.

"It's nice it's warm again," Stan commented, stepping back to lean up against the building.

"Yeah. Those Chicago winters can be rough. We got a lot more snow up in New York though."

"New York?"

"Um. Near Syracuse. Where I went to prep school," Kyle explained, mumbling. He regretted bringing up New York. He was trying to erase his history of privilege, not highlight it.

"Oh, I see" was all Stan said.

The front door creaked open and Hack reappeared, carrying a bag full of bagels. "Look what Pearly gave us, m'boys!" he exclaimed.

Stan stared at the bagels. "For free?"

"'Course for free. He's my friend," Hack replied, looking wounded.

"How nice of him," Stan said. "Let's get going."

It was pitch black out now, so it was more troublesome trekking through the fields than it had been early the other morning. But even in the dark, Hack and Stan still seemed to know the way.

"Can't wait to get myself a nice sales lady," Hack said loudly.

Stan groaned. "Can we please not talk about that?"

Hack spun around and hobbled backwards. "Swarm," he said reproachfully, "there ain't _nothin' wrong _with fuckin' whores." Kyle had to admit he was a bit taken aback by the unabashed lewdness.

"Does it really not bother you they're all on hop?"

Murmuring to himself, Hack turned back around. "You're no fun, Swarm."

They approached the tracks very far down in front of the station building, settling in the shadows of some trees relatively close to the railway. Kyle was less apprehensive about catching a train than he had been the other night, but he was still a bit jumpy, even despite the booze, shooting his head in the direction of every small noise in the night. _Animals, just animals,_ he told himself. "How long do you usually have to wait?" he asked.

"Eh, depends. One oughta be here soon," Stan said. Not much later, the distinct but indistinguishable whistle of a train sounded in the distance.

"Hope they load 'er up quick," Hack muttered.

The train eased to a stop in front of the station. There was some distant shouting and screeching noises, but it was too far away to see what was going on. The train inched forward as each boxcar was loaded up. Eventually, it progressed far enough down the tracks that the head car was precisely in front of them. They sat motionless, silent, watching from the woods.

They waited a little while longer, until they faced the sixth car in the train's sequence, when Hack said, "Let's go find an empty." Surprisingly, he and Stan made a dash out of the woods, and in breaking into a jog to catch up with them, Kyle realized their hurry: in order to get on the train while it wasn't moving, they only had as much time as it took for one car to be loaded up. They stopped to catch their breath at the base of the hill ascending the railway. Hack was the first to stumble up to the tracks, his drunkenness clear with his repeated slippage. Stan scaled the hill far more seamlessly. As Kyle made his way up the hill, he graciously accepted Stan's outstretched hand, noting his strength in how easily he was able to pull him up.

"What if we can't find an open one?" Kyle said in a low voice.

Hack turned to gape at him. "Huh? They ain't locked." He fiddled with the door to the box car, gently shoving it open with Stan's help. Kyle couldn't believe he had thought the car doors were locked from the outside too. That didn't even make any goddamn sense. The day before yesterday could've gone a lot smoother if he'd taken a second to _think._

"How much room in this one?" Stan whispered.

Hack climbed up into the car, disappearing into the darkness until he flicked a match ablaze. "Looks pretty good. Just a coupla stacks of boxes back in the corner. Get a rock or somethin' down there so we can wedge it into the door."

Kyle crouched down to run his fingers over the gravel, searching blindly for an adequately sized rock. Stan did the same, and when their fingers brushed over each other, Kyle immediately drew his hand to his chest, taken off guard by the incidental touch.

"This one'll do," Stan said, getting up again and crawling into the boxcar where Hack stood, looking ominous with his bearded face lit up by the match.

"You comin'?" Hack rasped.

Shakily, Kyle hoisted himself up into the car too. Hack shook out the match and flung it outside, taking the rock from Stan and ramming it into the corner of the door frame. He and Stan gripped the door and carefully pulled it shut until it halted at the rock, leaving a thin strip of hazy night visible from inside.

"Boxes are over to the left," Hack said. So, all three of them went to the other side and sat down, their backs to the wall. Kyle wanted to sleep, but he didn't know how he'd be able to. Both the walls and floor were very hard wood. He clutched his satchel, wishing he could be in his pajamas. At least he could use his bag as a pillow. And this south, it was warm at night too, about seventy degrees or so. As much as he was trying to remain optimistic, he was definitely on edge. The train was still starting and stopping in about twenty minute intervals to load up freight, but it would start for real soon. What if they checked the cars again before leaving the station? No, that would be impractical. But still. He inched closer to Stan, their shoulders just touching. Kyle prayed this was acceptable. Hopefully, Stan would just think it was an accident, or that he wanted to put some space between himself and Hack – it sounded like he was guzzling from his flask again.

"You tired?" Stan said so quietly it was unlikely Hack could hear.

"Sorta. Are you?"

"Yeah. Fucking exhausted."

The train's whistle cut the quiet that followed. Below the floor, Kyle could feel the wheels beginning to turn, making the whole car tremble as they sped up. Now that they were on their way, they were safe. No one would find them as long as the train was moving. Hack got up and strolled around the cabin, which was disconcerting, for it was hard to determine where he was exactly. Kyle willfully relaxed his shoulders, staring at the shred of vague moonlight allocated by the rock in the door. At once, things felt unrealistic. Here he was, sitting in a dark boxcar with two hobos he'd met just the other day, slightly inebriated from the first beer he'd ever drank in his life, and on the way to New Orleans, to top it all off. What would his mother think! Well, she'd be furious, of course, he thought smugly. Most likely, she _was_ quite angry with him at the moment, but probably sad, too. It was hard to accept that, but he knew it was true. However, if his parents were _too_ sad – non-functional and spending their days weeping – that'd be their own fault. In the note, he did say he'd be back. He would go home eventually, even if it wasn't in time for college. He wouldn't just leave forever like that. As his parents' only child, he couldn't be that cruel.

The cumbersome _thud_ of something hitting the floor tore Kyle from his daydreaming. "Ow, _owww_," Hack moaned.

"You a little blotto tonight, Hack?" Stan implored wryly.

"Swarm, Swarm, _Swarm._ You know how it is. _You_ know. I just get so – fed up," he said so morosely in comparison to his usual comical tone it was painful to hear.

"Yeah pal, I know, I'm sorry. Just try and get some sleep, alright?" Stan said.

Hack murmured something incomprehensible. Though just barely, the outline of his body was visible in the opposite corner. Eventually, his ragged breathing quieted and it seemed he passed out.

Stan shifted a little, slumping down against the wall. He straightened his legs across the floor.

"So… What's New Orleans like?" Kyle asked.

"Helluva lot smaller than Chicago, for one thing. Dunno if I'd call the stem in New Or'lins a true bunkerino though. It's more like – rows and rows of whorehouses. Course there's a whole bunch of those in Chicago, too, but in New Or'lins it's more, I dunno, built around it? In Storyville, anyway. You can't turn a corner without seeing a burlesque bar or a brothel. But the lodging house we usually go to has a bath, at least."

"Thank God," Kyle said. Then, he remembered the sponge incident from earlier and he felt his face get hot, the heat prickling down his neck.

"If I'm remembering right, think it's six or seven cents for a regular room at the place we flop at, so me and Hack split the cost and share, even though he spends most of his time – Well. You know."

"Oh. Right," Kyle mumbled. "You – Um, do you ever go to those places?" Mostly he was worried about feeling obligated to come along if Stan expressed interest in going, in spite of his previously expressed disapproval. Maybe there were more decent establishments where the women were not all doped up.

Without missing a beat, Stan said, "Oh, no. Well. I did go once because Hack and Craig talked me into it. But it's depressing, having to pay a girl to sleep with her. Might sound a bit strange, but that was why I couldn't do it. It felt all wrong. It makes me sad too, thinking that's what they gotta do to eat, y'know?"

"Ah, yeah. And I don't think it's strange. I probably couldn't do it either."

Stan murmured a sound of agreement. "Anyway, I'm gonna hit the hay." Raising his neck, he squashed his bag behind him to serve as a pillow.

"I better too."

"G'night, Kyle," Stan said, his tone airier.

"'Night."

The darkness of the car willed Kyle to sleep, but he had extreme difficulty in finding any sort of agreeable position on the hard floor. He envied Stan and Hack for being able to fall asleep so easily, though he knew it must largely be because they were accustomed to dozing off just about anywhere. Since he was constantly rearranging himself in vain attempts to get comfortable, Kyle had distanced himself a bit from Stan so as to not wake him. After a while, he gave up, too frustrated to reposition himself again, even though lying curled up on his side made his shoulder ache. He wished he could have brought a blanket, but it would have taken up most of the space in his satchel. He tried to relax his body enough to dupe it into sleeping and to clear his mind of thoughts. As usual, doing so had the reverse effect, and he started thinking about the conversation with Stan.

In all frankness, Kyle did not think about women much. His puberty had been late, and he presumed in due time he would think of them with the same hyper-sexualized passion that Gregory did, as evidenced if only by the film advert of Mary Pickford he kept in the drawer of his nightstand. And perhaps once Kyle matured fully, he would be able to regard Adina beyond solely intellectual means and she would thusly seem less irritating. Adina was beautiful, but in his state of being delayed, her sexual allure was invisible to him. The most damning contradictions to this theory were that he was freshly eighteen, a legal adult even, and also, he hadn't gotten any taller in over a year. Conversely, and maybe even terrifyingly, his current lacking of this necessary desire could be permanent, not merely latent. Either he would be a lifelong bachelor or there existed the even scarier prospect he was sexually inverted, which also provided a rationale for the extrinsic embarrassment affliction.

Reading Plato's _Symposium _last year was his sole reason for speculating the possibility there was something gravely wrong with him. He sort of wished he had never touched that book, because there were random weighty moments of self-reflection that sprung up where he would become so overwhelmed with fear that he was a sexual deviant he'd worry himself legitimately ill. Right now, if he didn't start thinking about something else immediately, he'd start to obsess over it, so he counted sheep. It was rather cliché, and sometimes he would get into the hundreds before he actually began to drift off, but it sort of helped, at least until the sheep reminded him of Craig's lamb comment, so he had to come up with a different animal. He settled on cats.

…

He was being shaken. "Hey. Hey wake up. Train's stopped," a voice said – Stan's. His body stiff and aching, Kyle tried to sit up. The crack in the door allowed a strip of dim gray light to weakly illuminate the car, but it was still hard to see much.

"Are we here?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm thinking we oughta help unload the freight. You feeling up to it?"

The only thing he was feeling up for was going back to sleep. He slumped back down on the floor when the train started up again, groaning when it jolted to a halt a few seconds later. "Just the stuff in this car?"

"Huh? Well, no. There's nothing much _in_ this one," Stan responded, laughing weakly.

"Oh, right." He forced himself to sit up again.

"Me and Hack like to help unload sometimes because it's like paying for the fare, in a way. Let's just forget it today though, since you seem awful tired. Maybe next time."

"Okay. Sorry."

Stan patted his shoulder and said, "No worries." He stood up and stepped away. "Hack, you up? We're here. Let's get the door open."

"A'ighty," Hack said, yawning through the word. He and Stan ripped the door open, and Kyle was a little surprised to see a sleepy urban landscape spread out beyond the train yard. For some reason, he'd been expecting to be greeted by the slow hills at the edge of the Appalachians. He had to remind himself they were hundreds of miles down the line yet again. This was the loud, cultural city of New Orleans, a town wedged into the real American South, he thought, then realized that was a line he'd remembered from some terrible book he'd read once. Such cheesiness was memorable, he figured, feeling a little crazy and out of it with how sleepy he was. He grabbed his bag and carefully got down from the car. Hack led the way, skirting through the lot and weaving between boxcars until they reached the street.

"I want a bed," Hack groaned miserably. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and handed one to Stan, who accepted, and to Kyle, who declined.

"Christ, me too," Stan said, lighting the cigarette. "I'm still pretty beat. Guess we oughta get a loft again, for the three of us."

"Whaddya mean 'again'? You got a loft in Milan? For just the two of ya?" Hack asked.

"Well, Handle got a loft, ah, accidentally?" he said, looking to Kyle tersely. "So he had an extra bed, and he figured there was no point in letting it go to waste."

"Huh." Hack scratched his beard. "I see. So we splittin' it three ways? How much is that?"

"Dunno. We always get a regular room."

"Oh, yeah."

Stan slowed his pace a bit to walk at Kyle's side, putting them a few steps behind Hack. Very weary from the unsatisfactory sleep, Kyle felt detached from his body as he trudged forward, his legs creaking with each deliberate step. If he were feeling more energetic, he would have been taking in as much of this stranger city as he could, but his fatigue was rendering him indifferent. Anyway, a city was a city, and besides the occasional palm tree, the only thing glaringly different was some of the architecture – less industrial looking, more heavy curves, lots of white paint. Some nice mansions with big patios.

"How much farther is it?" Kyle asked Stan, hoping it didn't come across as whiny.

"Another mile or so," he said, taking a final drag from the cigarette and squashing it under his boot.

Kyle shut his eyes, envisioning the comfort of a bed. "So this place has rooms with three beds?"

"Hm? I don't think so. Lofts got two, like in Milan."

"Wait, so one of us is will have to share then," Kyle said.

"Um. Yeah? What, you want your own bed? That's fine by me. I'll just sleep with Hack."

"N-no, that's – Not if you don't want to," he stammered.

Stan stared blankly. "What?"

Kyle tried to piece together an explanation. "Well, Hack is kind of, uh. _Dirty_," he offered warily, hoping Stan would not be offended on his behalf. But Hack really _was_ filthy, and he probably smelled too, not that Kyle had ever gotten close enough to catch a whiff of him.

At first, Stan just chuckled incredulously, then his laughter deepened into a loud, booming noise.

Hack turned back to them. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," Stan sputtered, still laughing.

"If you say so." Hack shook his head and spun back around.

In a low voice, Stan said, "Yeah, I wouldn't say Hack's the cleanest of 'bos. I gotta tell that fucker to take a bath while we're here, especially considering the sorts of places he's gonna be going." He shuddered.

After a long while of walking on the same street, they turned for the first time, onto Tulane Avenue, according to the bent street sign at the corner. Almost suddenly, the buildings became less well-kept and the streets more littered with trash. They made a final turn, onto Lasalle Street, and Hack pointed ahead to a red brick building coming up on the right. It looked quite decent, and the way the rising sun was twinkling behind it convinced Kyle it was a gift from God.

The lobby was dark though, eerie even, with well-cultivated cobwebs thick and white in the corners of the ceiling. Glumly, Kyle told himself not to expect much of the room. A loft cost twelve cents a night, so they paid eight cents apiece to stay for the next two days, though Hack told the elderly man at the front desk they'd probably be staying three, if not four days, and they'd pay later. Stan seemed distinctly adverse to this, and he eyed Hack sternly, though his glaring went unnoticed by the intended party.

"So, we gonna draw straws or somethin' to see who gets a bed to himself?" Hack said on their way up the steps.

"Nah. You can have it," Stan said.

Raising an eyebrow, Hack replied, "Huh? Well, a'ight, then. If you say so."

The room was worse than the one in Milan. Just upon setting foot inside, Kyle could tell it was incredibly dusty. There was an uneven piece of cardboard actually nailed to the wall, and he didn't want to think about what was behind it. Right now, what mattered most was that the beds looked neat and laundered, ready to be slept in.

Hack shoved off his boots and collapsed onto the bed by the window. "Aww, yeah. This is great," he said, spreading his arms out over the quilt.

Kyle unlaced his boots, hurrying to get into bed first so he could spare himself the embarrassment of having to wedge his body next to Stan's. It was clearly going to be uncomfortable: both beds were twin-sized and could hardly allocate two people, so it would be almost impossible to keep his body from touching parts of Stan's. However, in a strange, secret way, he was also oddly giddy about sharing a bed with him. Burrowing under the quilt and sheets, he shook that possibly lewd notion from his head and resolved to consider sharing a bed solely for what it was: a means to save money. He curled up as far to the right of the bed as was comfortable and deliberately shut his eyes, listening carefully to the shuffling sounds Stan was making nearby. The door clicked, and at first Kyle thought Stan might be going somewhere, but then he realized he was just locking it; he'd forgotten to do so himself in his haste to get in bed first. It occurred to Kyle he was holding his breath, for whatever reason. He exhaled, concentrating on his breathing, his heartbeat, Stan's soft footsteps approaching. Stan raised the quilt, climbing into the little bed himself, his legs bumping up against Kyle's as he tried to arrange himself beneath the sheets.

"You asleep already?" Stan whispered once he'd laid his head down on the pillow.

"No, not yet," Kyle replied, keeping his eyes shut – he could tell Stan's face was very close, so close he thought he could feel the whispery puffs of his breath on his forehead. He heard him swallow hard, and wondered if their closeness was making him nervous too.

"Well, ah. 'Night."

"'Night," Kyle echoed.

The bed was by far a more agreeable place to sleep than the boxcar floor, but Kyle was used to endlessly changing positions until he found the best one, and sharing a bed made him loath to move about. Just once, he allowed himself to roll over, facing away from Stan, and he hoped he wouldn't take it personally, although it _was_ in fact somewhat personal, for he wasn't able to relax knowing Stan's face was right in front of his. He clutched the quilt to his chest, sniffing in vain for the scent of any familiar laundry detergent. The bedding smelled clean at least, but he couldn't identify a discernible brand. He fell asleep thinking about the airy, crisp scent of Ivory soap instead of counting sheep or cats or any other animal.

When he woke up, everything around him was the precise level of warm that bordered upon uncomfortable. Blearily, he recognized he was huddled up into Stan's chest. On a mental level, this completely shook him, but physically, he was not alarmed. He ought to have moved right then and there, but he was still sleepy, and besides, how much farther away could he have even gotten in this bed? If he were more honest with himself, he might be able to admit he even _liked_ the feeling of Stan's arm draped across his side, limply holding him in place. Practically, it did not make much sense _why_ he should like such a thing, and instead of getting introspective about it, he came up with the abstract nonsense-conclusion that the human race was simply wired to seek out intimacy. Yes, that sounded biological enough to be credible, because living out some crackpot modern application of pederasty was certainly neither credible nor intelligent nor any other good, wholesome thing.

He lay there, perfectly still, turning his head every few moments to suck in a big gulp of air; it was stuffy in the small space allocated for him around Stan's body, but pleasant regardless, a safe feeling that reminded him of sitting in front of the fire when he was cooped up in his room at Everly's during a particularly bad snowfall. When Stan woke up, he'd have to pretend he was still asleep – surely he'd think it absurd he hadn't at least untangled himself from the weight of his arm. In the meantime, Kyle squirmed closer, but then his thigh brushed up against something unambiguously _hard_, and realizing what he was, he jerked back in a panic, then immediately got out of the bed. Standing at the foot of the bed, he studied Stan's face to see if extracting himself so suddenly had woken him up. Didn't look like it. He got lucky.

Hack was gone, which was also a relief. Kyle wondered if he had seen the arrangement he and Stan were in and thought anything of it, but he determined to be callous about it, because given the fact Hack and Stan often split the cost of a room and shared a bed, Stan must have unconsciously cuddled him, too, at some point.

The little bell alarm clock on the armoire read almost noon, and Kyle thought about waking Stan up, but then he remembered there was a bath down the hall and God, did he ever want to take a bath. Stan looked so peaceful sleeping, anyway. Kyle grabbed his satchel and headed to the bathroom, hoping nobody would be in there, and that nobody would come banging at the door while he was in the tub.

So long as he managed to ignore the weird stains in the tub, the bath was exquisite, at least until he looked around the tiny bathroom and realized there weren't any towels. Regardless, he spent a long time soaking, reluctant to get out and try to figure out how to dry himself off. And anyway, the water was an ideal temperature – the exact definition of "warm," which was perfect because for one, the lodging house was not air conditioned, and two, it was already midday, so the bathroom itself was edging on uncomfortably hot. Cold baths disgusted him, so he relished the few-notches-above-lukewarm water.

He thought of how he'd brushed up against Stan in the bed, and alarmingly, he started to get hard himself. He told himself to ignore it. Feeling compelled to jerk off to the idea of another boy's erection was so damningly inverted – by far the most explicitly unnatural compulsion he'd ever had. The head of his cock was peeking out of the water in the most mocking way, and then again, he hadn't properly touched himself in days. The privacy of the bath presented an ideal opportunity, and it would be kind of a shame to pass it up. He resolved to clear his thoughts, shoving anything to do with Stan out of his mind, and gripped himself loosely, hoping maybe he wouldn't be interested in working himself to completion. However, he quickly got into it, even running his other hand over the back of his thigh, which he occasionally added to the routine for the hell of it. He was going to melt from the pleasure, the exertion, the modest heat of the water, the steam clouding the room. Carelessly, he let a moan escape from his lips when he came.

Immediately afterward, he climbed out of the tub. For a makeshift towel, he used his pajamas, which was sad, and also not very effective. He cracked the foggy window, letting the hot Louisiana air waft in, and sat on the edge of the tub until he was completely dry. He stared at the mirror as it slowly got less foggy. Once it was shiny and reflective again, he decided it was about time to get dressed. Carrying his damp pajamas, he went back out into the hall, where he was stunned to see Stan sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back to the perpendicular corridor, reading a book. There was a folded towel in his lap.

"St – Swarm," Kyle said, wanting to smack himself for almost saying his real name. The hallway wasn't exactly a private place, even if no one was around.

"H'lo," he said, closing the book and resting it on the towel. "I figured you were in there. I'm gonna take a bath too. Wanted to wait out here and make sure nobody got the tub before me."

"Oh. Uh, sorry I was in there for so long. Where did you get that towel, by the way?"

"Front desk. You didn't get one?" he asked, eyeing the pajamas, which were blotched a deeper red in spots.

Lamentingly, Kyle stared at the towel. "I didn't know they were down there."

"I shoulda told ya, sorry."

"No, no, it's alright. I'll be in the room then," Kyle said when Stan stood up and moved toward the bathroom. On the way back to their room, he prayed there weren't any strands of his conspicuous curly hair left sticking to the tub. There was no showerhead, so he neglected to rinse it out.

He draped his wet pajamas over the single chair in the corner of the room, sort of glad now that the lodging house wasn't air conditioned, for at least they'd dry sooner. The warm air was not comfortable at all though, especially after the sauna-like heat of the bathroom. He thought of his favorite pair of linen pants hanging in his closet at home, wishing he was in them now instead of these tweed ones. At the moment, the best he could do was roll up his sleeves and undo a couple buttons. In doing so, he paced the floor, recalling at once the horrific possibility Stan had heard the airy gasp he'd let slip while he was jerking off in the tub. At home, he always made sure to turn on the bathroom ceiling fan to mask any sound, just in case someone was out in the hall. The bathroom here didn't have a fan, and, stupidly, he had forgotten to bite his lip to muffle that damning vocalization. He hadn't at all been expecting Stan to be waiting outside, only three yards away at most from where he had been shamelessly _pleasuring_ himself in the tub. That was really the most embarrassing thing, the proximity, since he did rather doubt Stan had heard him. Even if he had, how likely was it that Stan had assumed the truth? Highly unlikely, Kyle convinced himself, for he was getting sick of all of this extrinsic embarrassment lately. On the other hand, telling himself to entirely disregard plausible things to salvage his psyche must be some type of self-deceptive mental gymnastics.

Still ruminating this, he heard the door open, and Stan came in, toweling the side of his head. "I think Hack took those bagels with him. So, wanna get some grub?" he asked.

Downstairs in the kitchen, they had toast, a cup of coffee each, and some rolled oats leftover from breakfast. Then, they went back upstairs to get their dirty clothes and dropped them off at the front desk, where they paid the receptionist a penny each for laundry service. They had no place to go, but they left anyway to wander the streets. Storyville was a humorlessly inappropriate name for such an unkempt part of the city. It served as a prime example for the types of neighborhoods Kyle's mother had warned him about. There was a general sense of both actual and moral uncleanliness about the whole area. Even more apparent in the afternoon daylight was how markedly many of the buildings were decaying – it was curious that some were still standing at all. One of the nicer ones had a fancy sign next to the door saying "French House," and thinking it was a sort of novelty shop, Kyle almost suggested they stop in, until he saw a woman in the window sucking her thumb. She was bobbing her head up and down so ardently that he first concluded she must be mentally deficient. When she pulled back and licked her thumb with the entirety of her tongue, it struck him there was a definite quality of vulgarity to the scene, and he realized it was a whorehouse. He walked faster.

"God, fuck this place," Stan said, glancing over at the house.

Three more blocks down the street, they found themselves facing the Mississippi. Kyle was sweating, his cotton dress shirt glued to his back, but as they treaded onto the rocky shore, the river seemed to offer a cool, though very weak, breeze. The sun reflected upon the crests of waves in the dark river water, shining so white-hot it hurt to look at. They sat down on the rocks, side-by-side, quietly staring at the water. Stan lit a cigarette. A steamboat coming upstream would pass them soon. Typical summer boredom. Funny it could happen even on an adventure. Absently, Kyle picked at his cuticles.

"I think Hack feels like a third wheel lately," Stan said once the boat went by.

Frowning, Kyle replied, "But he's barely around."

"See, but that's what makes me think so – he feels he's intruding, so he goes off somewhere. I know he spent the whole time in Milan trying to get Craig to come with us again, and I kinda feel like a jackass for it, but I'm sure as hell glad he couldn't convince him. I think that was one of the reasons why he was so fucked up last night."

"But wait, if you three caught out for a while, wasn't someone a third wheel then?"

Stan turned in Kyle's direction, looking not at him, but at some point in the distance. He half-smiled. "I guess it was me."

"Then maybe he ought to have a turn," Kyle retorted. Stan laughed a little. "What?"

"Hah, nothing. I suppose you're right though, and it's not like we're telling him to go get lost or anything."

"Yeah, exactly."

Stan lay down, his back over the white stones, squinting up at the sky. His bangs were sticking in clumps to his forehead. The first two buttons of his shirt were undone and the lapel flapped methodically with the breeze, exposing and then hiding his collar bone, slick and shiny with sweat. Looking at his skin made Kyle feel even hotter, and he eyed the river, half-wanting to jump in. Instead, he lay down, too, covering his eyes with his arm and trying in vain to think about how cold the winters were up in New York.

"I worry about him," Stan said. "Hell, I worry about everyone. I worry about my dad. I've only been back to Montana once, but I didn't have the nerve to go see him. I just – I hope he's still alive. Do you think your parents will miss you?"

"Probably. I bet they have the whole police force out looking for me."

"What?" Stan rasped in a crazy, panicked tone.

Kyle rolled his arm off his face to see Stan sitting up, looking down at him fixedly with that one eye. "Well, I mean – I'm just guessing. It's not like they'll ever find me _here_, so I'm not too concerned." Stan did not look allayed. Kyle sat up and placed his hand on his shoulder, sensing the dampness of his skin through the cotton. "If they did call the police, the search would be called off after just a couple days since they wouldn't come up with anything. I left at night. Nobody saw me." This was not entirely true, for everyone on that streetcar must have seen him. But it was true enough, and he had been wise in getting off a few blocks away from the train yard, so it's not as if anyone could have known for sure he was catching out, least of all that he was all the way down in New Orleans now.

The worry in Stan's face dissipated somewhat, making him just look exhausted. "Okay. If you say so."

For much too long, a terrible silence hung between them. Finally, Stan spoke up, saying he was thirsty. As they walked back to the street, he seemed to be in deep thought, and Kyle sourly regretted that comment he just _had to make_. It was possible a police search hadn't even been organized. Unlikely, but possible. He did understand Stan's alarm though, but the chance really was small they could track him this far from home. Additionally, its likelihood was rendered almost obsolete since they were moving every couple of days.

But he'd heard things about how hobos were treated by the police. It wasn't so much the petty law breaking, but the contempt that law enforcement had for them, a loathing similarly shared by "proper people", such as his parents. Remorsefully, Kyle had shared that sentiment once. Later, he romanticized this lifestyle, and now, he was acquainted with the less fantastical reality. He didn't want to be a liability. He didn't want to make Stan's life more difficult, especially when he'd been so hospitable. What a way to repay him having a cop hot on their tails would be.

They stopped at a crummy bar and downed two glasses of ice water each. Their lunch had not been very substantial, and it was somehow nearly five anyway, so they got a booth in the far back corner and had a more filling meal of beef stew, followed by cheap whiskey, and then more whiskey, which Kyle insisted on paying for because Stan's mood seemed to elevate which each swig he took from the glass. Stan prodded him about his school life, wanting to know the sorts of classes he had taken and what books he'd read, but speaking about the curriculum at Everly's got sidetracked once the topic of Eric Cartman came up, and Kyle found himself elaborating the series of vile pranks he had executed across campus. Stan listened with rapt attention, supplying an incredulous "Jesus Christ" where appropriate. Similarly, he could not believe Eric was expelled for something as innocent as tampering with the school's phone lines when he had taken a number of anonymous shits on the desks of teachers he hated and sewed a second head onto the principal's dog.

As the evening went on, the bar filled up with hoards of people talking so loudly over each other they could no longer make out what the other was saying. "_I said_, let's bust this joint," Stan shouted over the table.

So, thoroughly inebriated at that point, they paid the tab and dug their way through the crowd, squeezing between men with horrible slicked back hair and women adorned with fuzzy shawls and costume jewelry. When they finally managed to get out the door, they paused for a moment in front of the building, slightly out of breath from the ordeal and from sheer drunken giddiness. Their eyes met and Stan grinned smartly, still breathing hard. Smiling wider, he suddenly burst into a dash, running straight down the middle of the street. Kyle bolted after him, feeling rejuvenated in a goofy sort of way, like he had burst from the seams of some lingering doubt.

Running sloppily, Stan looked over his shoulder, his eye glinting in the last light of the day. "You coming?"

Too out of breath to answer, Kyle narrowed his eyes, trying to look dangerous, and forced his legs to sprint faster. He was making increasing leeway on Stan, at least until he was thrown off when he turned into an alley. Only a few feet behind him now, Kyle sped down the alley, carefully avoiding a broken bottle. He was just about caught up when Stan seemed to run even faster, deviously glancing back again. Back on a real street, the lodging house appeared plainly, and even though Kyle thought he was going to die, he maintained his speed, because Stan was slowing down a bit as he raced to the lodging house. Kyle caught the receptionist's scowl when he grabbed the door right before it shut behind Stan, who was now making his way down the hall.

By the time Kyle made it to the steps, he was close enough to reach out and grab Stan's shoulder, but he evaded the grip and staggered freely up to the second floor. Right after Stan flung the door to their room open, he spun around, dodging Kyle's attempting to tackle him. Kyle nearly stumbled over, but feeling almost animalistic from the alcohol and adrenaline, he tried to grab Stan again. Stan dived under his grappling arms, clutching Kyle's midsection and pulling him down. Exhaustedly, they wrestled on the floor, and Stan, being bigger, sturdier, did not struggle in pinning Kyle down. If Kyle weren't so completely plastered and drained from running all the way here, he would have tried to free himself from Stan's grip, and he was going to tell him to at least get the hell off him when Stan leaned back, his expression oddly intrigued, curious, no longer really playful.

"W-what?" Kyle asked between pants.

Stan crawled off him and sat down cross-legged, still staring at him with the same funny expression. Laughing softly in the back of his throat, he said, "Christ, I must be _really_ drunk."

"So am I." In fact, Kyle was so drunk that he was on the verge of passing out. However, he would not allow himself to fall asleep on the floor when there was a perfectly good bed two feet away. For some leverage in getting up, he grasped Stan's shoulder, then went over to shut the door. "Oh, shit. Did we forget to lock the door when we left this morning?" he asked as he turned the lock.

"Huh," Stan trailed off, looking up with his mouth half-open. "No, no," he said, pointing his finger absently, "I remember you locked it. Unless they forgot to lock it up again when they came to drop off the laundry, it musta been Hack."

Kyle rolled his eyes, although it didn't really matter that the door was unlocked all day because they hadn't left anything in the room. Except, wait! His pajamas! Oh, thank God, they were still draped over the chair though. But how sad, too, since he really wanted to wear them, and they must be completely dry now. He moved around Stan and threw himself across the bed, eyeing the bedclothes bitterly. "I wanna put those fuckers on," he muttered.

"What?" Stan asked, drawling out the vowel. He got up and draped himself over the bed in a similar fashion, his shoulder pressed snugly to Kyle's.

"My pajamas."

"Do it. If I had pajamas, I'd wear 'em."

Kyle huffed. "Well now I _can't_ wear them, because I'd feel bad."

"Ha, _what?_" Stan said with dazed incredulity.

"If you want, you can wear them. If they fit."

"I can't. I'd feel bad," Stan replied in a slightly mocking tone, rubbing his shoulder into Kyle's.

"You could wear half and I could wear half," Kyle suggested.

So that's what they did. Kyle made Stan look away while he shucked off his pants and crawled into the pajama bottoms. When he turned around Stan was shirtless. He accepted the top once Kyle unbuttoned it and slid his arms into the sleeves, but he couldn't refasten the buttons over his broad chest.

"This is great," Stan said, running his palms down the fabric. "Thank you."

"Yeah, anytime," Kyle replied, dragging his eyes away from Stan's chest.

They crawled under the sheets of the bed, neglecting the possibility of sleeping separately, because what if Hack came back in the middle of the night? Kyle was not concerned that his arm was so close to Stan's naked chest he could almost feel the warmth, nor that their knees were touching, and he fell asleep like that, comforted by the anchoring of Stan's proximity as his head threatened to begin spinning once he closed his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** So, this update is long overdue. I signed up for a pitch hit for the South Park Reverse Mini Bang at the beginning of October so I had to bust out a fic in a little over a week. Anyway, this chapter ended up being a little shorter than the first two, bleh. Also, I want to thank everyone for leaving reviews and for the favorite/follows, it really means a lot to me. ;_;

* * *

Kyle awoke to the smell of cigarette smoke. When he opened his eyes, someone he'd never seen before was sitting on the chair on the other side of the room, staring at him from behind a cloud of smoke he'd just exhaled. Kyle panicked. "Who the fuck are _you?!_"

The expression on his dirt-caked face hardened, making him look like an animal. He said nothing.

"St- Swarm, Swarm, wake up," Kyle said, nudging him, keeping his eyes fixed on the man. Flicking the ash from his cigarette, the man got up from the chair and moved to the right side of the other bed, where Hack lay, still sleeping.

"What's wrong?" Stan asked, gripping Kyle's arm. He noticed the intruder. "Who is _that?_"

"I don't know! I don't fucking know!" Kyle said, shaking now. Stan jumped out of bed, nearly falling as he struggled to extract his legs from the twisted sheets.

"Wake up," the man growled, grabbing Hack's shoulder and shaking it. Stan had cemented himself between the beds, his forearms raised, muscles hard and tensed, his body a shield before Kyle.

"Fer chrissake's man, what is it?" Hack moaned.

"Who is this guy?" Stan demanded.

"Jeez Louise, Swarm, fuckin' relax, will ya? He's just some 'bo who said he wanted to catch out to Texas," Hack said.

Stan groaned and dropped his arms to his sides, his fists slowly, but shakily unclenching. "Really? _Really?_ Christ, that's just – shit, would you get out of bed?" Stan said, tugging on Hack's arm. "We need to have a chat."

Hack grumbled incoherently and got up, glowering as he followed Stan around Kyle's bed. Stan leaned down, his hand flat on the bed, and murmured, "C'mon, we gotta go out in the hall for a sec." Kyle sprung out of bed, not needing to be told twice.

"Do you even know who that guy _is? _He looks like an ex-con!" Stan rasped.

Hack raised his eyebrow. "Yeah?"

Stan's eye twitched. "Where'd you find that guy, anyway?" he asked.

"Some bar, I think. I dunno, I was real drunk. But I do remember that he said he was lookin' for field work, and told him he oughta catch out to Texas with us. He don't talk much, but he's a good guy. Why's it matter, anyway? S'not like we knew who Handle was – "

"You know that wasn't the same!" Kyle said, irritated to be spoken of as if he weren't there.

Hack turned to look at Kyle, like he had forgotten he was there. "Yeah, okay, I know," he admitted. Two long seconds passed. Hack placed his hand on Stan's shoulder and said, "Hey, you're big now, Swarm. And you got Handle now, too. Maybe it's time you go your own way."

"What? No!" Stan exclaimed. He clenched his eye shut and bowed his head, shoulders slumping. "You know I'm not just being a grouser for the hell of it, Hack."

Hack edged closer to Stan, and Kyle thought they were going to hug, but Hack just gave Stan's shoulder a few pats. "Yeah, I know, pal. Just trust me here, and give Mole a chance."

…

Even if Stan seemed intent upon doing so, Kyle wasn't going to listen to fucking _Hack_, of all people, and give this animal man a chance.

"You ever been to Texas?" Stan asked, straining to maintain the conversation.

"No," Mole said without looking up. He continued picking the meat away from the chicken breast with his jagged nails. Mole was a fitting name for someone who only grunted short, simple responses and refused to use silverware, Kyle thought with disgust.

Kyle wanted to ask Stan to reconsider Hack's suggestion of splitting up, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Besides, he was still over-analyzing the rather intimate energy he'd seen when Stan had so anxiously refused the idea. There was a sort of familial connection they had, or at least, Kyle wanted to think it was just brotherly. Mole slurped up a stringy piece of chicken and Kyle thought of those hobo wolves, devouring kids on the road. It dawned on Kyle with horrifying alarm that Stan and Hack could currently be, or perhaps had once been, in that sort of relationship. If Hack was in his late twenties or so now, he would have had enough seniority to exploit a fourteen year old Stan. Hack could have been a predator, could _still_ be one, Kyle realized, gripping the glass of whiskey tighter in his palm.

Hack smiled at him questioningly. Shit, he must have been staring. Kyle averted his gaze immediately and took a long, burning drink.

But Hack didn't seem like a sexual predator. Even if he had met Stan early on, when he was in his early twenties, that was awfully young to be a jocker. Frustratingly, Kyle was beginning to understand that he barely knew anything about either of them. All he knew about Stan was that he was from Montana, had a degree from the Hobo College in Chicago, smelled like fresh-cut firewood and fall leaves, and seemed to have bad dreams every night. It infuriated Kyle, knowing so little, whereas Hack probably knew Stan's entire life history, his secrets, his favorite books, even the things in his nightmares.

Hack launched into a spiel about the time he and Stan found a dead mole in a boxcar. Kyle found himself getting more irritated, hating Hack for needing to constantly remind everyone of the good times he and Stan had had on the road. Mole was glowering at Hack, clearly not enthused either, although most likely because he was offended on part of his animal kin.

Kyle's moody aggravation was made worse because Stan was still about a foot away from him in the booth. Usually by his third drink, at the very latest, Stan would be a lot less physically inhibited, throwing his arm around Kyle's shoulders, randomly pressing his palm to his back. But tonight, Stan wasn't getting any more animated, although he was way past the third drink, and he'd been quiet since he'd given up on getting Mole to talk. For the most part, Kyle was still sober, since he didn't want the alcohol to extinguish his anger towards this whole fucking day. Maybe he and Stan could bail, go back to the river and talk for a while. Kyle could ask how he'd met Hack, maybe even get the nerve to ask if he'd ever read _The Symposium_. Oh God, he better not. He must not be as sober as he thought.

"Were you serious? Were you, Hack?" Stan suddenly asked. He sounded drunk. Miserably drunk.

"Huh? 'Bout what?" Hack said.

"About splittin' up," Stan said tightly.

The worry in Hack's face was obvious. He opened his mouth, but paused for a beat before speaking. "No. I wasn't serious. Hey," he said, his voice softening. "I'm not goin' anywhere, so just forget I ever said anythin'."

"Then why'd you say it in the first place?" Stan shot back. Kyle held his breath, eyes darting from Stan to Hack, then back to Stan, who was glaring at Hack bitterly.

Hack rolled his eyes. "Man, what is your deal tonight? Christ, let's just get outta here."

It was almost nightfall, the streets alive with drunks shouting and heckling each other, silent silhouettes of women in huge feathered hats at the corners of buildings. Mole dipped into an alley in a rather suspicious manner, but Kyle was just glad the cretin had the sense to leave them for now.

"Where are we going?" Kyle asked.

"Down by the river. He's pro'ly gonna throw up," Hack said. He tried to pull Stan's arm over his shoulder to help him walk, but Stan violently shrugged him away, stumbling into Kyle.

"Sorry, sorry," Stan said, steadying himself.

"No, no, it's okay," Kyle said, touching Stan's arm, a little worried Stan might brush him away, too, but on another level, fairly certain he wouldn't. Stan allowed Kyle to drape his arm over his shoulders, which was a great relief, although Stan's weight leaning on him made walking difficult, and admittedly, Kyle was also concerned he might get barfed on.

Stan's face was pressed to his neck, and if Kyle wasn't mistaken, Stan was intermittently _sniffing _him. However, he was probably mistaken.

The noises of the street faded behind them as they reached the rocky shore. Stan detached himself from Kyle's side and ran to the edge of the river, stumbling, almost tripping on the rocks. Where the dark sand met the water, he dropped to his knees and started throwing up. Absently, Kyle sat down next to Hack further up on the shore, having wholly forgotten his bitterness towards him.

The scene was disturbing, even apart from the vomiting: Stan's body was trembling at the edge of the river, a dark, defeated shape, dropping closer to the water each time he heaved. The last traces of dusk were beginning to fall away, making it harder to decipher the outline of his body, and the blackness of the river was swelling against the shore, threatening to pull him in. This was worrisome, and Kyle would have ran to him to keep the dark water from swallowing him up, but Stan was still vomiting, making horrible heaving sounds, and people usually preferred to throw up in relative privacy, Kyle figured, so he stayed put.

"Is he okay?" Kyle asked Hack, who was lighting a cigarette, his hand cupped around a match.

"What? 'Course he is," Hack replied, flicking the match out. "Then again, I s'pose that depends upon what ya mean by 'okay'."

Stan seemed to have stopped vomiting, but he was still hovering over the river, teetering on his knees. He toppled to his side, just at the water's edge, and without thinking, Kyle was running to him.

"Stan, Stan!" Kyle shouted, then slapped his hands over his mouth, because he wasn't supposed to call him that when other people were around. As he got closer, he could see small waves were pushing against Stan's side, drenching his clothes, and Kyle fell to the shore, his left knee hitting a sharp rock, but he didn't care. He put his hand on Stan's face, brushing his wet bangs away. "Are you okay?"

"Just let me lie here," Stan replied miserably.

"But you're getting all wet," Kyle pleaded, trying to pull Stan away from the water.

Grunting, Stan pushed himself up onto the shore. He grabbed at his face and ripped the eye patch off, crumpling it in his fist as he tore his arm away. "_Fuck_," he moaned, his voice low and crackling, weak and beaten.

Kyle studied Stan's face, squinting to see in the dark, because surely what he thought he had just seen must have been his mind playing a trick on him. He leaned down, his face so close to Stan's he could smell the stale stench of his vomit-breath, and then, with absolute clarity, he could see that Stan had two perfectly functional eyes, tears pouring from each of them.

Kyle opened his mouth, once, twice, but no words came out. Stan avoided his gaze, staring up at the night sky, and said somberly, "You can see Delphinus perfectly," which sounded too much like someone's famous last words that Kyle panicked and gripped the drenched fabric of Stan's shirt. He realized this was all getting a bit dramatic when he thought he should warn Stan not to go toward the light.

Quiet footsteps approached. "You feelin' any better, Stan?" Hack said, crouching down. "Woah, shit! I ain't seen yer other eye in a long time. But don't be a bakehead – put that thing back on." Stan did not put the eye patch back on, nor did he make any sign that he had heard Hack.

Kyle was getting progressively more confused. Why would Stan wear an eye patch day in and day out if he had two eyes? Why would _anyone _do that? Unless they had a lazy eye, maybe. And if that were the case, it seemed unusual Stan would be intent on keeping that a secret. Kyle leaned back, wishing he had the gall to just _ask_, but he was hesitant to speak up with Hack still there, always felt like an outsider around him. And it was so infuriating they never bothered to fill him in on anything, either!

Hack got up and tossed his cigarette into the water. "I think it's 'bout time we were headin' back," he said.

"Gimme a goddamn minute," Stan muttered. A few moments later, he sat up and reaffixed the patch over his left eye.

On the way back to town, Stan was walking much more steadily, but he draped his arm around Kyle's shoulder anyway. There was no sniffing this time, however. Stan just sniffled sadly and wiped his nose with his shirt sleeve once in a while.

Once they had arrived in front of the lodging house, Hack said, "Well, boys, I'll see ya in the mornin', then."

"What?" Stan rasped.

"I think you owe Handle an explanation, dontcha think? You can have the room to yourselves, tonight." Hack placed his hand on Stan's shoulder. "The night's still young, and I got somethin' to see to before we hit the next burg. Hey! Don't worry," he said, laughing. "I ain't emancipatin' you or nothin'. I'll come by sometime tomorrow afternoon so we can decide when we're gonna catch out."

"Christ, don't make him think it's like that," Stan said, knocking Hack's hand off his shoulder. "And tomorrow night. We should leave tomorrow night."

"Fine by me," Hack said. He saluted them jovially and walked away, disappearing into an alley across the street.

"I'm all wet," Stan said so sadly that Kyle couldn't help but laugh a little.

"You could take a bath?" Kyle suggested as they went inside, feeling guilty for laughing. Stan murmured something not necessarily affirmative, but he got a towel at the front desk.

"I need some crackers or something," Stan said, passing the stairwell into the kitchen, which was thankfully empty. They found a pack of saltines in a cabinet. On the way up the stairs, Stan quietly nibbled on a cracker. Kyle ate one, too, probably only because Stan was already on his second, but he regretted it as soon as he took the first bite and realized it was stale. Not horribly stale, but stale enough to taste it.

"Do you feel any better?" Kyle asked as they approached their room.

Stan finished chewing and grabbed another cracker, fiddling with it between his fingers. "I think so, yeah. Christ, I thought I was done with drinking like that. Well, anyway, you can come and wait with me while I wash up," he said, avoiding Kyle's eyes. "If, ah, you want to, that is."

"Oh – okay. Yes, sure," Kyle said, the words spilling out of his mouth much too quickly. He could feel his face heating up, hating himself for it.

Stan shut the bathroom door behind them, and promptly unbuttoned his shirt. Crouching down in front of the closed door, he pressed the red garment into the space between the floor and the bottom of the door. Kyle caught himself staring like an imbecile at Stan's back: the tanned flesh, slick from the river water and sweat, the smooth map of muscles, bending and weaving with his bones. And oh, splendid, he was getting an erection. Wonderful. He sighed at himself as he turned the bath water on, wanting to be useful at least. He twisted around and closed the lid of the toilet to sit on it, crossing his legs carefully as he wedged his dick under his thigh, which was a bitch to do, never comfortable, but highly necessary if Stan planned on disrobing entirely to bathe, which was an almost certainty, and thank God for that. The extrinsic embarrassment Kyle felt was overwhelming, though it wasn't humiliating in the mortifying sense, but rather, exciting. This was puzzling, since excitement and humiliation did not seem to be related, however, Kyle was not currently inclined to deliberate pragmatic meaning.

Stan sat on the floor, his back to the tub, shoulders hunched and arms draped over his knees. "Where do I even start," he said, moving his finger under the strap of the eye patch. He looked to the door suspiciously. "Once the tub fills up, I'll use my pants as another buffer and then I'll tell you everything from the beginning."

They sat in silence as the room grew muggier. Kyle's heart was pounding hard in his chest, and he prayed for the water to hurry and fill up the tub faster. He would be forever thankful Hack had prompted Stan to explain the mysterious eye patch to him, even making himself scarce for the night. Kyle felt guilty for suspecting he was one of those hobo wolves – Hack was not a bad guy. He should probably be nicer to him.

Stan twisted around to shut off the faucet when it was three-quarters of the way full, then stood up and unbuckled his belt, flinging it through the loopholes of his pants, pulling them down and climbing out of them in an admirably nonchalant fashion. It was as if it didn't even bother him he had an audience soaking up the sight of his cock, a few shades darker than his skin tone, the foreskin extending over the head – oh, he was uncircumcised. Kyle tucked this information into his brain, repeating it to himself while Stan pushed his pants into the foot of the door. He allowed himself to steal another glance when Stan got up and climbed into the tub, taking note of the details he'd missed: the thick black pubic hair trailing up to his navel, the brief view of his balls dangling freely just before he settled into the water. Kyle was so hard at this point it was getting painful to be squashing his erection so forcibly, so he unfolded his legs and grabbed the towel from the sink, placing it over his lap.

"Damn, you don't got any soap with ya, do ya?" Stan asked.

"I do, actually," Kyle replied, retrieving the bar of Ivory soap he'd brought from home from his satchel. He handed it to Stan, beaming, stupidly pleased to offer something useful.

"Thank you." Stan removed the eye patch and flung it over the side of the tub. He rubbed the bar between his hands, forming a lather he coated his face with, then splashed it away and sunk down, submerging his body up to his neck in the water, and breathed deeply. "I guess you could say I'm on the run. I've – I've killed a man. I didn't mean to, though," he said earnestly, glancing at Kyle for the shortest moment. "Fuck, wait, I gotta start at the beginning. Goddamn, I'm drunk. So, ah, anyway, I'd just left home, spring of eighth grade, and I was trying to catch out, all by myself, and hell, it was scary, but I felt alright knowing I had this .32 pistol I'd swiped from my dad, and, shit, Jesus – " He inhaled deeply, then continued: "It was the first week or two I'd been on the road, and I was catching out from Blackfoot, this little town up in Idaho, working my way south. I'd come across an empty for the ride, and that whole night, I had my hand in my coat pocket, gripped around the pistol 'cuz I was scared as hell being all by myself. So the train stops at the next burg, and I'm working on getting the door open when all of a sudden, it gives way and right in front of me, there's this road bull – a cop, the kind they got watching the yards for tramps – and he's telling me I'm in for a real hell of a time in the coop, that he's looking forward to delivering 'em a fresh punk for 'em to have something to play with. First thing I do is a try to run, but he grabs me by the collar and throws me against the car and it just – my gun, it – it just went off."

Stan fell silent, his gaze fixed ahead. "Next thing I know I'm looking at this bull lying on the ground. He kept opening his mouth like he wanted to ask me what happened, but he couldn't talk – only blood came out. I'd never seen anybody look so scared before," he said, his voice very quiet. "I couldn't think, barely knew what was happening, so I – I just ran. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, outta the yard into some woods, and I didn't stop running till I lost my footing and fell into a ravine. I hid in there for a long time, thinking to myself _'I've just shot somebody, I just shot somebody dead.'_ A part of me was saying maybe he wasn't dead, maybe I'd just shot him in the leg or something, and as soon as somebody came along and saw him lying there, they'd take him to the hospital and he'd be fine. But I knew he was dead. I knew I'd killed somebody. I knew I was a murderer."

The steam hovered idly in the little room, thick and stupefying, slowing time, and Kyle had to remind himself to breathe.

"So, ah. God," Stan said. "I don't know how long I laid in that ditch. I felt like I was losing my mind, like I was being sucked through the earth down into hell. I musta stayed there most of the day, and when I finally got up, it felt like my body hadn't moved in a million years. I wandered around the woods, barely paying attention to where I was going, but I was definitely lost. I just kept thinking – knowing – I was going to hell for this, I deserved it, and I kept saying to myself, _'I've killed a man, I've killed a man, I've shot him dead, and I'm gonna have to pay for it.'_ I told myself I should go straight to the station and turn myself in, but I couldn't make myself do it. I couldn't – I didn't _want_ to. And, well, I was lost, anyway. Had no clue how I'd even get back to town."

The faucet dripped. Stan squeezed his eyes shut, and Kyle tried to find his voice, tell him he didn't have to continue if he didn't want to, but then Stan went on, his voice sounding more normal now: "It got darker, and I started getting worried, hearing all these noises in the woods, thinking someone was coming after me. I don't even know how I was still walking at that point, I was so fucking exhausted. Starving, too, so when I saw a campfire ahead, I headed straight toward it, didn't even think it mighta been, I dunno, a cop or something. There was this guy sitting by the fire, cooking something in a can, and first thing he does when he sees me is runs up to me, asking what happened. Things get sorta fuzzy then, I just remember eating some beans, and then I musta fallen asleep, because next thing I knew it was morning, and this guy was leaning over me asking if I felt any better. I think I musta told him the whole story the night before, because he was telling me we had to hurry up and catch out, and I needed a disguise of some sort. My hair was kinda long then, so we cut it all off with this old shaving razor he had, and then once we'd made it to some town in Nevada the next day, I got an eye patch at the drugstore. Hack was real good to me. I dunno what I woulda done if I hadn't come across him in the woods, shit. We got as far away from the west coast as we could, went straight to Norfolk and built bridges for a while, and I realized, _'Good God, I'm going to get away with this, aren't I?' _and as much as it was a relief, it also scared the hell outta me."

So, Stan had accidentally killed somebody. It wasn't fazing Kyle as much as it probably should, which was perhaps concerning, but the fact it had been an accident was of unavoidable importance; Stan would never kill someone intentionally, Kyle could say so with absolute certainty. And he'd only been a child! Really, hadn't Stan been a victim, too? A victim of homelessness and poverty and –

"I still think about it every day," Stan said. "I can't ever forget that I took somebody's life. I won't ever forgive myself for it, either. It messes me up real bad when I remember it too keenly – his face, the fear in his eyes, that blood." He shook. "I don't know – I still don't know what I'm supposed to do. Sometimes I still think I oughta turn myself in, though I doubt that will make me feel any better. Hack always says it wasn't my fault, which is a big fuckin' joke, since there's no way it _wasn't_ – who else's fault would it be, y'know?"

Kyle got down off the toilet seat and knelt on the floor. "But it was an accident. You can't forget that," he said, peering up at Stan, trying to make eye contact. Guiltily, Kyle let himself steal a quick glance down, feeling lightheaded by how idly innocent Stan's foreskin-covered cockhead looked peeking out of the bathwater. Flustered, he promptly leaned back.

"Does that even change anything?" Stan asked.

"Yes," Kyle said intently. "Believe me, it does. You have to know it does."

Stan sat up, the water churning around him, and turned toward Kyle, looking at him almost meekly with two great blue eyes, his face complete, expression whole without the eye patch. Kyle felt he was evaporating into the hot air, a little puff of mist, and he damned the universe for allowing such a perfect set of eyes to exist.

"Thank you," Stan said, and that wretched voice, those sad, wet eyes crinkling with gratitude, the sheer humanity of this boy, impelled Kyle to wrap his arms around Stan's shoulders, drawing him into an awkward hug.

This close, Kyle could hear a small, weak sound shudder through Stan's chest, and he squeezed him a little tighter, the dampness of Stan's skin gluing them together. Kyle held on longer than he probably should have, wanting to say something significant, but nothing sufficient came to mind.

Stan placed his hands on Kyle's shoulders, pushing him away slightly, and Kyle withdrew his arms immediately, overcome with shame, an apology forming on the tip of his tongue. Stan moved his hands to Kyle's cheeks, framing his face, and said, "I'm so glad I met you."

"I – me too," Kyle stammered, acutely aware of his heartbeat climbing up his throat.

The last traces of worry vanished from Stan's face, and he exhaled in uneven little puffs, his hands trembling on Kyle's face. Time felt even slower now, and Kyle anticipated he was going to be kissed even before Stan leaned forward and pressed his lips to his own. The kiss lasted only a few seconds before Stan pulled away, his eyes huge. "Shit, sorry, I forgot I threw up. Ugh, fuck," he groaned.

Kyle absorbed the horror in Stan's face, a terrible panic spurring through him until he realized Stan simply meant he had vomit-breath. "Oh, um. Brush your teeth?" Kyle suggested, which was quite brazen for him, but he desperately wanted to kiss Stan again, for real, and for longer than a couple seconds.

"Yeah, after I get outta here," Stan said. He scrubbed the bar of soap over his arms and chest, and Kyle made a mental note to remember every place on Stan's body it traveled, knowing full well he had the lewd intention of recalling the soap's whereabouts the next time he used it on his own body. Stan washed his hair, too, then dunked his head in the water to rinse the soap out. Kyle was hard again, had been, and his dick throbbed as he envisioned how thrilling it would be when Stan emerged from the water, like a tanned Poseidon rising triumphantly from the sea. It dawned on him this insane analogy was strangely on par with Stan's fixation with the constellation Delphinus, though there remained the question of who Amphitrite was, and without hesitation, he fashioned himself into her role. They'd ride hippocamps through their underwater kingdom, lounge together in beds of seaweed, go to the surface and sunbathe on warm beaches. When he began to wonder if their Triton would have black or red hair, he bitterly chastised himself for the absurdity of such thinking.

Stan got out of the tub in an inert, very human-like manner, but there was still something divine even in the way he shivered before Kyle thrust the towel into his arms, feeling stupid for his delay in handing it over. Kyle forced himself to look away as Stan dried himself off, certain he'd die if he saw Stan's dick from this close. Stan wrapped the towel around his waist and dug a toothbrush and a roll of Colgate's Ribbon Dental Cream from his bag, which delighted Kyle, since it was the same brand he used. Kyle brushed his teeth, too, scrubbing his gums ruthlessly while Stan got dressed. It was sad to see all that glorious skin covered up again, even worse to see Stan's left eye go back into hiding, but hopefully there'd be more opportunities in the future. Fingers crossed. On both hands.

"We should go back to the room," Stan said. "So we won't be, um, interrupted, if anyone wants the bathroom."

"Ah, right," Kyle agreed. God forbid if any dirty hobo came knocking at the bathroom door.

Stan didn't flip the lights on in their room. Kyle almost wanted to at least turn on a lamp so he could see the expression on Stan's face and know if this kissing business was going to continue or if they were calling it a night and heading to separate beds since Hack was gone for the evening. He was starting to get downright jumpy, but just then, Stan put his hands on his shoulders and leaned forward, his breath warm on Kyle's lips for a hesitant moment before he pressed his mouth to Kyle's. Kyle wished that instead of compiling that crackpot mermaid theory, he had gone over everything he knew about kissing, though, admittedly, it wasn't much, but opening his mouth felt like the right thing to do as the tip of Stan's tongue darted over his bottom lip. The kissing deepened and Kyle stopped worrying about what the right thing to do was when their mouths meshing together felt almost synchronized in its haphazardness. He was too aroused to bother with overthinking anyway, his concentration focused on his cock pulsing against the fabric of his undergarments, dampened with pre-come, and the taste of Stan's mouth, the texture of his tongue.

Stan broke the kiss, panting harshly, then wrapped his arms around Kyle's neck, drawing their bodies together. "I've never done this before," he said.

"Done what?" Kyle asked, breath hitching, feeling the semi-hardness of Stan's cock pressing against him. Surely he didn't just mean kissing?

"No, um. This kinda stuff," Stan murmured, pressing their hips together.

"Oh. Me neither," Kyle admitted, mumbling. He had once seen a photo of an ancient Greek plate which depicted two men engaging in unnatural intercourse, an act which he found difficult to wrap his head around. However, he did know enough about inverse sexuality to understand it was not the _only_ act. The word "fellatio" came to mind and his head spun, suddenly needing to know what Stan's cock tasted like.

"Shit, I'm an idiot for having drunk so much. I can't even stay hard," Stan said. "So, ah, I could – ?" Hesitantly, he brushed his thumb over the waistband of Kyle's pants.

"Yeah," Kyle breathed. "But – on the bed?"

Kyle's legs didn't seem to be working properly, and he staggered toward bed, Stan holding onto him as they both fell into it. Stan buried his face in Kyle's neck, his fingers working on unbuttoning the fly to his pants. Without meaning to, Kyle jerked forward into Stan's palm, tortured by the faintness of the touch, needing to feel more. Kyle tugged his undergarments down, sighing with relief as his cock sprung free. Stan pressed a wet kiss to the corner of his jaw and wrapped his fingers just below the head of his cock, jerking it so slowly that a tear of frustration welled in Kyle's eye.

"You can ah, do it faster. If you want," Kyle whispered, fearful he would offend Stan, but he was just about to die from this torture. Stan obeyed, gripping him a little tighter, and began pumping in the most exquisitely deliberate fashion. Despite himself, Kyle let out a moan, and wholly embarrassed, he buried his faced in Stan's shoulder. Stan's fingers on his cock felt a thousand times better than even his most satisfying masturbation sessions, the ones where he'd lounge in the tub and tease himself for upwards an hour before getting out and lying face down on the cold tile floor, jerking his cock with manic relinquish.

Stan brushed his thumb over his slit, surging Kyle into the next level of arousal, the stage where mentally abating orgasm was futile. Perhaps aware of this, Stan stroked him just slightly faster, and before Kyle could give him some sort of warning, he was coming, making another ridiculous-sounding noise as he emptied himself over Stan's knuckles. Stan softened his grip and jerked him through his orgasm in exponentially slower strokes with such gentleness Kyle thought he might cry.

"Ah, sec," Stan said quietly, Kyle's soft cock flopping from his hand as he got up. Kyle was acutely humiliated when it occurred to him Stan was wiping his spilled _ejaculate_ from his hand, and he immediately pulled his pants back up, gritting his teeth as he shoved his dick, still a bit sensitive, into his underwear. Kyle was certainly grateful, however, that Stan had made sure he didn't come all over his dress shirt. He was so polite, such a gentleman.

Stan climbed back into bed, and instinctively, Kyle held his arms out. They sunk into each other, their limbs interlocking beneath the sheets.

"Um. Thank you," Kyle said quietly.

"I feel like I should be the one thanking you," Stan said. "For ah, not thinking I'm a bad person because of – you know."

"There's no way I would. I – I couldn't," Kyle said, pressing their foreheads together.

"Thank you," Stan whispered into his mouth. They kissed sleepily, in slow, chaste brushes, grazing their noses together, talking without speaking. An annoying voice in Kyle's head was pestering him to take a long, hard look at what he was doing, but it was easy to ignore, because he was exhausted, and because it felt so good being wrapped up in Stan's body, warm and safe, hidden in comfortable darkness.

Kyle woke up with his back to Stan's chest, soft wisps of his breath tickling his neck. He decided then, quite pointedly, that he could absolutely live with being a sexual invert if it was this dizzyingly exciting. Besides, he was already a degenerate heathen for running away and fashioning himself a hobo, so tossing in more deviance made little difference. In fact, it actually made everything better, positively tantalizing, and he cradled Stan's hand against his chest, smiling dopily. How ironic that he'd always been miserable trying to be _good_, whereas life was so much more enjoyable being _bad!_

Stan murmured sleepily, and Kyle twisted around, his head spinning with giddy euphoria. "You awake?" he asked.

"Mm, sorta," Stan said.

Kyle snuck one arm around Stan, burrowing into him. "How do you feel?" he said.

"Good. Really good, actually," Stan said, burying his face in Kyle's hair.

They lay in bed for a while longer, finally getting up at eleven thirty to grab a late breakfast. It was crowded in the kitchen, half a dozen hobos sitting around drinking coffee, so they took their cinnamon rolls and apples outside and sat on the steps of the little back patio.

"What time do you think Hack will come by?" Kyle asked.

"Dunno, pro'ly three or four, if he was out all night," Stan said, licking the icing off his fingers. "We can just kill time up in the room till then." There was definitely something implicit in the way he said "kill time," and Kyle had to firmly press his lips together to keep from grinning.

They were on each other the second they were back in the room, their mouths meeting in sloppy bursts as they pawed at each other, desperate to feel more, crazed by the feeling. Every muscle in Kyle's body seemed to melt in the heat of Stan's hands, and he sunk to the floor, dragging Stan down with him. Kyle's dick throbbed, trapped in his undergarments, and he wanted to pull Stan closer, wanted him to feel it, but he didn't quite have the nerve yet.

Stan sat back on his knees, panting hard, his eye dark and glassy. Kyle had to the see the other one. "Can I?" he asked, touching the strap of the eye patch.

Stan tore it off, flinging it somewhere behind him. His eyes softened and he placed his hands on either side of Kyle's face, moving in gradually to plant his mouth over Kyle's, sighing like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Hesitantly, Kyle lowered his hand between their bodies, half-stunned he was even doing so, and genteelly brushed his fingers over Stan's crotch, his brain turning to mush when he felt Stan was hard, too.

Someone walked past their door, and they both froze.

"Ah, let's – " Stan said, nodding toward the bed.

Kyle wrapped his arms around Stan's neck, letting himself be all but carried. He couldn't just _let go_ – even the idea seemed preposterous.

They dropped to the bed awkwardly, the fervency of the mood reinstated as Stan began working on unbuttoning Kyle's shirt, whispering, "Yeah? Okay?" into his neck, to which Kyle could only nod.

Stan pulled the white cotton dress shirt off, their gazes fixed on each other. Kyle had never experienced such intense extrinsic embarrassment; it had expanded within itself so much it was pouring out of him. The odd part was how much he loved it: being made vulnerable like this, allowing himself to be exposed, letting the shame of showing Stan his obviously erect nipples wash over him. It was as humiliating as much as it was arousing, being seen like this in the light of day, and the feeling augmented upon itself when Stan moved his head to his chest and began sucking on one pert nipple, rolling his tongue over it. Kyle cried out, jerking his hips up and rubbing himself against Stan's leg like an animal in heat, too inundated with lust to care about higher-faculty leanings such as self-control, or pride.

"You want me to take care of you again?" Stan said in a low voice, cupping Kyle's erection in his palm.

"No, I need to – you, too," Kyle replied, finding himself unable to piece a proper sentence together.

"Mm, yeah. 'Kay." Stan draped himself over Kyle, winding his arms behind him as he rubbed his groin into Kyle's thigh, groaning from the contact. "Need to get out of these clothes first," he said between choppy breaths.

Stan tore his shirt off and crawled out of his pants, chucking them over the side of the bed. He sunk back down around Kyle, pressing himself firmly against his side. Kyle began to worry, anxious now that the ball was in his court, and as much as he wanted to scoot down and wrap his lips around that beautiful, uncut cock, he had no idea how to initiate the action.

"I want to suck you," he whispered in Stan's ear.

"Oh – God. Yeah – yeah, okay," Stan said, his mouth hanging open. From how wrecked he sounded, Kyle felt it was now doubly important to get his mouth on Stan's dick with utmost haste, and he pushed away any lingering hesitation and moved downward. He wasn't exactly sure how he'd get all of Stan's cock in his mouth, but he accepted it as a challenge. Curling his fingers around the base, he leaned down and tentatively licked the tip, breathing in the scent of him, which was stronger, so much more intense right here. Stan moaned like he was begging, a muffled, pleading sort of cry, and Kyle took a deep breath before guiding his cock into his mouth, remembering to be careful of his teeth.

Tightening his fingers around the base, he jerked it carefully, saddened he couldn't get much more into his mouth. He moved his tongue around the underside of Stan's cock, gliding over the delicious contours of skin. He suddenly realized, and pretty belatedly, damn it, that he actually had to _suck_, so he promptly did so. Unexpectedly, Stan's hips jolted forward, shoving his cock towards the precipice of Kyle's throat, making him gag.

"Sorry, sorry," Stan stammered.

Kyle tried to say, "No, it's fine," but he had a dick in his mouth, so his words were completely unintelligible. He placed his hand on Stan's hip, thumbing the bone, and resumed sucking, more intently this time. His own cock was throbbing almost painfully, and he couldn't help but let his other hand sink beneath the waistband of his underwear, grazing his fingers down the shaft.

"I'm – I'm," Stan said, frantically moving his hand over the top of Kyle's head.

Kyle moaned around his dick, lapping in quick bursts across the underside, egging him on. Barely realizing it, he came himself at the mere thought of Stan emptying himself down his throat. He felt out of it, dazed, as Stan's come spilled into the back of his mouth. Admittedly, it tasted pretty terrible, but a proper sense of accomplishment necessitated every ounce be swallowed, so with prompt alacrity, Kyle did so. Beaming like a fool, he dropped down to Stan's chest, the _thump-thump _of his heartbeat comfortingly loud in his ear, lulling the corporeal world into a softer version of itself.

…

They spent the afternoon in bed, mapping their hands over each other's bodies, hesitation dissolving as they familiarized themselves with each angle and curve. Their touches would grow longer, more fervent, then give way to a sudden impulse to grab the other. Kyle had never had so many orgasms in such a short amount of time, and he had certainly never come in anyone's mouth. He couldn't stop himself from craving more; it was as if Stan had flipped an irreversible switch inside him that would make him need this forever. And he could sense, with utmost clarity, that Stan was equally affected, wanting to touch and be touched just as badly. But it was more than just the addictive touching; there was something else, too, something heavier than mere lust encircling them as they lapped dazedly at each other's mouths, Stan's hand wrapped around their half-hard cocks, idly jerking them together.

"Never stop touching me," Kyle said, moving his hand through Stan's hair.

"I don't ever want to," Stan said, his voice low and throaty, so very _male_, that Kyle's dick went full-hard almost instantly. He spread his hands over Stan's chest, thumbing a nipple as he traced his ribs, wanting to feel more, never quite being able to feel enough. Stan had his arm wrapped snuggly around his back, his hand pumping their erections together, and it was good, so good, but no matter how tightly he held onto Stan, no matter how much he willed their bodies to melt together, Kyle still felt too whole within himself. It took them both a long time to come, and Kyle wondered if he might at all, until he had the astounding epiphany that the prime appeal of sexual intercourse, unnatural intercourse included, _must_ be that sense of unity, two separate bodies merging into one. It was a rather weak orgasm, and only a small amount of ejaculate forced its way out, dripping onto Stan's hand. Stan thrust his hips forward in short, staunch bursts, and made a pleading, almost pained-sounding little noise as he came. Kyle pressed a firm kiss to his forehead, affection and something akin to heartache crashing over him, like his chest was trying to open up wide enough to house Stan's goodness.

…

They had neglected to pay attention to the time, and somehow, alarmingly, it was already four o'clock. Kyle fretted – Hack would be here any minute, and they were positively filthy. They rushed to the bathroom, squatting in the tub and scrubbing themselves clean, making it back to the room in a little under ten minutes.

"Hey," Hack said. They both jumped, and Kyle gasped in a very ridiculous way he wished he could take back.

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," Stan said, covering his face with his hand.

"Why?" Hack asked. He was lounging on his bed, completely nonchalant, taking loud bites of an apple. "Did you guys forget I was comin'?"

"No, we just – never mind," Stan said, pushing the door closed with his foot.

"So. How goes it? Ready to bust this joint?" Hack said.

"God, yeah," Stan and Kyle said in unison, glancing at each other for a short second before turning away, blushing. Kyle realized in horror that the room probably still smelled like sex despite the fact they'd opened the windows, but he didn't dare sniff the air to be sure. The most glaring evidence of all, their unmade bed, probably rife with stains, stood between them and Hack. Mortified, Kyle inferred from Hack's silence that he was beginning to piece the situation together with one-hundred-percent accuracy.

"What's wrong with you two?" Hack asked.

"What? Nothing," Stan said, his eyes darting to the bed. "C'mon, let's just – get going."

They went to the same bar as yesterday for an early dinner, and ate ravenously. Kyle wanted nothing more than to go back to the lodging house and take a nap, and as much as he disliked the overcrowded, dirty streets of Storyville, it was, in a way, starting to feel homey, and he was loath to be catching out again so soon. He didn't want to think of the misery working the fields under the Texan sun would be. He'd never had a real job before, and though he was reasonably fit, he excelled in less rigorous activities, ones which relied more on precision than sheer strength, like fencing and golf.

After eating, they moved to the bar. Kyle sipped a single glass of lemonade for upwards an hour, certain than if he consumed any alcohol he'd promptly fall asleep. Stan, now into his second drink, was becoming a lot less physically reserved, either his hand resting on Kyle's thigh under the counter, or arm tossed over his shoulder, fingers skirting across the collar of his shirt. Kyle could feel Hack's eyes on him, and he almost wanted to shout, _"Yes, it _is_ what it looks like!"_ except he would never say something so blatant, at least not in public. So he ignored Hack and concentrated on the weight of Stan's arm around him, reveling the fleeting moments in which Stan's fingers would brush over his collarbone.

Mole was waiting for them at the edge of the freight yard. Hack was markedly overjoyed to see him, or more likely, was just stupid drunk. They easily came across an empty. Stan and Kyle settled together in the far left of the car, a disorganized barrage of empty boxes separating them from Hack and Mole. The train would begin moving, only to wind to a halt a few seconds later for more freight to be loaded up. The fifteenth time Kyle felt the wheels begin to turn beneath him, he braced himself for when they'd jerk to a halt, but they kept moving, getting faster, even, and oh, wait, they were finally leaving the station, thank God. Kyle slumped down the wall of the boxcar, leaning his head against Stan's shoulder.

"Are you, um. Happy?" Stan said very quietly.

"Yes," Kyle said, and it was the truth; he was happy, and though he was concerned about the field work, and disliked sleeping in boxcars, and was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, all those things felt completely manageable because Stan was here, kissing him very softly as he pulled him into his lap.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I am sad this took me so long to update. This past semester was surprisingly busy and the only thing I got written was my submission for this year's South Park Big Bang. Now that I actually have time again, I'm looking forward to updating this story with some degree of regularity. Another thing: May 24th is the 100th anniversary of Kyle leaving home! I guess it might've been nice to update on that day, but I really wanted to post this ASAP.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has continued to read and support this story. And as always, thanks to Holly for her encouragement.

* * *

Texas was brutal – at first. Kyle made an honest effort to shock cut grain alongside Stan, Hack, and the gruesome Mole, and somehow, he managed to survive the first day. However, hours' worth of trailing behind a tractor-drawn binder and shocking the bundles the machine so carelessly dropped, followed by a fitful night of sleeping in a barn, left his body aching enough to destroy his immediate dedication, though not his general determination. He resolved to take a one week break from fieldwork in order to strengthen his body, and he adhered to an exercise routine based on a steady build-up of push-ups, sit-ups, and jogging alongside the stream. Although it was exhausting business, within just a few days, he was feeling less physically dilapidated and generally stronger. He began to sort of enjoy it, since he was able to relish some privacy during the day for diary-writing, and also because he used going to pick up Stan at the farm at five o'clock as motivation to get him through his workouts. What he was not enjoying – what he was in fact abhorring a great deal – was all this outside-business, the lack of running water, and the sourly uncomfortable sleeping quarters, which of course they had to share with a dozen other harvest hands.

Beginning the third night, he and Stan took to slipping away from the barn to find a quiet spot to sleep outside, colloquially referred to as "covering with the moon," a much more romantic label, which was actually rather appropriate considering their nighttime activities. With no potential onlookers, and the blankets the farmer's wife had provided spread over soft grass serving as much more comfortable bedding than the barn's old straw, Kyle was both pleased and surprised to find that sleeping outside was quite preferential to sleeping in the barn. The nights were warm, though not so warm that the temperature discouraged huddling close together as the occasional cool breeze whispered across the fields, whisking the last scents of spring into their nostrils. The panorama of stars would change from a bright, bustling atlas, their twinkling as heavy and alive as their rough kissing, to a quiet dotting of nightlights, an optical lullaby which sung them softly into dreamland.

Kyle understood that his infatuation with this inebriating romance (coupled with his compulsion to at least appear as physically resilient as Stan), prevented him from actively complaining about not having a toilet, or a bed, let alone anything resembling a bath. But despite the fact he could convince himself mid-orgasm that all he truly needed was Stan, Stan touching him, Stan's mouth on his neck, his encouraging whispers in his ear, Kyle was desperate for satisfactory room and board after having spent a solid four days and nights out in the open. He ached for even the shoddiest room in the most rundown lodging house, though the local stem was more of a makeshift camp than part of an actual town, a "jungle," as it was called, and it felt like as much, with hobos scampering all over the place in drunken disarray.

On the sixth day of Kyle's training sabbatical, he realized with horror that the stress of outdoor living had become greater than his daily excitement to engage in what he had, rather embarrassingly, started referring to in his mind as "making love." So, when Stan offhandedly mentioned an abandoned house near the next farm on the line, Kyle wanted to be skeptical and tell himself it may have been demolished, or overrun by wanderers in the past year, but he was too thrilled about the prospect of sleeping in a bed again to bother arming himself for future disappointment.

"How long do you think we'll be able to stay?" Kyle asked, squirming a little closer to Stan. They were curled up together at the foot of a fruitless mulberry tree, blue-white moonlight shining through the spaces between the leaves.

"A couple weeks, I'm guessing. Depends on the work we can find," Stan said. "Hopefully we'll be able to come across some threshing jobs. You still wanna work, right?"

"Yes, I plan to. I'm starting to get bored during the day. Bored and lonely," Kyle said, slipping his hand underneath Stan's shirt.

"Lonely?" Stan teased, moving his hand over Kyle's. "And were you lonely all those years before you met me?"

"Yes, I was," Kyle answered seriously. "I just didn't realize it."

Stan made a small, pitying sound in his throat and pressed their foreheads together, his lips skirting across Kyle's as he said, "You don't have to be lonely anymore."

Kyle swallowed up every word: each syllable that flooded into his heart made him feel brave enough to crack open the doors to even the parts of himself he hated, wanting to trust Stan with what was in each of those lonely rooms.

…

Since Stan estimated the harvest would be finished in just two more days, weather depending, Kyle decided it would be futile, not to mention awkward, to go back to the farm and request to be hired again. Two days' worth of salary was four dollars, which was certainly nothing to sneeze at, but with the imminent prospect of a private bedroom, his time would be better spent contemplating the practical logistics of unnatural intercourse and how he could subtlety plant the idea in Stan's head that they should try it.

In the cool of the morning, Kyle sat with his back to the mulberry tree and wrote a diary entry regarding the plan:

_It seems it would be difficult, technically speaking, and this may be the reason why S has not brought it up. However, I do not believe difficult things are less worthwhile, or less worthy of pursuing. In fact, their difficulty may make them more valuable, since they require greater effort and more forethought._

_I believe the process would be identical to separating two objects which are stuck together, though in the opposite way. Firstly, heat is necessary to relax the bond, and then, lubrication can be added to easily pull the two objects apart. Unfortunately, I am not currently in possession of any sort of lubricant, and I sincerely doubt Ivory soap would suffice. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have time to slip into a drugstore in the next town, although I'm not sure what believable excuse I could offer S for having to go in alone._

_I suppose the easiest way of communicating this plan to S would be to present him with some type of lubricant, and trust that he'll comprehend my intentions, since I'm so prudish on the subject matter I'm being vague and roundabout in my own diary._

Kyle clasped his diary shut and sighed, concentrating on willing away his erection. He ought to start his exercise regimen before the hottest part of the day, but he wasn't feeling particularly energized. He ended up wasting the day nibbling on biscuits, napping, and daydreaming about erect cocks penetrating slick holes.

…

Two days later, they rode the Sabine and East Texas Railway to Ogden. Because so many farms were reliant on migratory workers, security was lax on the rail yards during the wheat harvest, and empty boxcars were easy to come by. The ride to Ogden was short, barely over an hour, and it was still light out when they arrived at the freight yard. They helped unload cargo, and Kyle felt a surge of pride in knowing this was a real man's work.

"Welp," Hack said, dusting off his eternally-dirty slacks. "Guess we better get goin'. S'gonna be a bit of a walk to that house."

Kyle frowned. They were heading to the house immediately? Not even staying in town for a drink first so he'd have the opportunity to sneak away to the drugstore? "Don't you guys want to stay in town for a drink first?" he casually propositioned.

"I dunno. Hack?" Stan said.

"I'm pretty beat. So's Mole," Hack said, nudging him. Mole made a small growling noise, but he didn't move away from Hack, who let his hand rest on Mole's naked arm for a bit too long.

"Sorry," Stan said, shrugging and offering Kyle an apologetic look.

"Oh, no, I don't –– Actually, the thing is, I have a headache, and I was just going to stop in the drugstore and buy a bottle of aspirin," Kyle said, aware of how theatrical he sounded. "So, I will just – go ahead and do that, so – Be right back!" He took off dashing down the dirt road leading from the station, groaning at himself all the way to the main street for being so damn obvious.

His training routine over the past week was already proving useful – he was barely out of breath by the time he made it into town and came across a drugstore. He dusted himself off before heading into the store, maintaining a nonchalant demeanor as he asked the pharmacist for a jar of Vaseline. He paid for it, shoved the jar into his satchel, and marched back outside, feeling quite proud of himself for succeeding in part one of his mission. Stan, Hack, and Mole were coming down the street now, Stan walking more briskly than the other two, and Kyle promptly put on his sick-face because he remembered he was supposed to have a headache.

"Did you get the aspirin?" Stan asked. He seemed more confused than concerned. Kyle would tell him the truth later, when they were alone.

The walk to the house was not as long as Kyle was anticipating it would be, and he still felt quite energetic, likely thanks to his afternoon naps. It was just about dusk when they arrived, and the old house looked sort of scary, although that really just added to the allure: the orange glow of the sun setting behind it made it look more creepily picturesque than actually spooky. Regardless, Kyle grabbed for Stan's hand as they stepped inside.

Besides being incredibly dusty, the interior was strangely orderly, as if the owner had up and left for no apparent reason. The dining room table's chairs were pushed in neatly, the parlor was tidy in its mundane tackiness, and the upstairs bedrooms were very adequate, with ordinary, clean-looking quilts spread over the beds. Of course, Kyle's standards for lodging had lowered significantly in the past few weeks, and he was just grateful not to be sleeping in an old barn. Sure, the whole house could use a good cleaning, and the Farmer's Almanac from three years ago lying on the nightstand was definitely eerie, but a little dust never hurt anyone, and there was no such thing as ghosts.

Although it was a bit too warm for his silk pajamas, Kyle put the bottoms on anyway, knowing he wouldn't be wearing them for very much longer, given the way he could feel Stan's gaze on him, seeing right through the fabric. Kyle felt his cock stiffen and he hurried to join Stan on the bed.

"I didn't really have a headache," Kyle said. "I um, bought this, actually." He pulled the jar of Vaseline from his satchel and presented it to Stan, who cautiously took it from Kyle's hands.

"Vaseline?"

"Well, yes," Kyle said, sitting up straight, feeling his face flush feverishly red. "If you were interested in going further with what we've been doing lately."

Stan's eye widened, and he mouthed a silent "Ooh," before replying, "I would be very – interested."

Kyle exhaled with relief, only then realizing that he'd been holding his breath. "Ah. Good." He cleared his throat. "Yes. Good."

Stan laughed nervously. "So, ah, how do you want to do this?"

Kyle could feel his face burning up, the room suddenly so hot. He forced himself to mutter: "I was thinking you on top. Um. If that's okay."

"Okay," Stan said, nodding slowly. He swallowed audibly.

"We don't have to do it if you don't want to," Kyle said quickly.

"No!" Stan responded, sounding almost panicked. "I mean – no, I want to," he said, looking at Kyle very intently. "Let's just – here." He leaned forward to set the jar of Vaseline on the nightstand, then began to pull the bed covers down. Kyle eagerly crawled under the blankets with him, desperate to shed his pajama bottoms, but loath to do so in the light of the fading day.

"I'm melting," Kyle murmured. He fiddled with his waistband, vying for Stan to disrobe him.

"Let's get these off then," Stan said, the confidence in his voice sounding forced. Kyle bit down on his lip to hold back a moan when Stan's fingers skirted over the skin above the waistband, each gentle touch surging straight to his dick. As Stan slowly tugged his pants down, freeing his erection, Kyle savored the extrinsic embarrassment of exposing himself to Stan like this, his nervousness beginning to flutter away.

The anxiety came back in a rush when he could sense Stan hesitate for a moment. "Um. Let me get outta my clothes, too," Stan murmured. He shuffled under the blankets, peeling the clothes off his body, then kicked them over the side of the bed. Once disrobed, he scooted closer to Kyle, tentatively resting the palm of his hand on his shoulder. "Do want to, um, just kiss first?" he asked.

"Alright," Kyle replied, torn between amusement at Stan's shyness and the overwhelming urge to preserve this painfully sweet side of him forever.

Stan kissed him timidly at first, in a way that reminded Kyle of the first few times they'd kissed, which felt like so much longer than only a week ago. As their kisses became hungrier, they slipped into the familiar comfort they'd been growing accustomed to the past few days. Stan jerked their cocks together, exerting restraint in not pumping them to completion, made all the more difficult by the fact that Kyle simply could not help himself from thrusting into Stan's grip.

"Can you – get the Vaseline," Kyle said between pants, sensing that Stan was delaying now, and God damn it, he wasn't going to come without a dick in his ass.

"Ah, yeah," Stan said. He reached over Kyle for the jar and uncapped it.

Kyle remembered then, as he watched Stan liberally coat his erection with Vaseline, that this wasn't going to work unless the receiving end was properly lubricated, too. He'd mapped everything out logistically, yes, but he only realized now he hadn't considered this from a purely physical standpoint. Never once had he touched himself back there, let alone had anything in it as large as Stan's cock, and as he took the jar and scooped up some of the Vaseline with his fingertips, he painstakingly tried to swallow his apprehension.

Feeling Stan's eyes on him, he felt inextricably ridiculous as he reached around his backside to smear the Vaseline over his hole. His heartbeat was thudding in his head, oppressively so, and he tried to breathe evenly, to keep calm. He wanted to go about this properly, which meant pushing into himself a tiny bit, to ensure that Stan would be able to go in easily.

"Ready?" Stan asked cautiously once Kyle had placed the Vaseline back on the table.

"Yes," Kyle said, ashamed it came out as a wavering whisper. "Yes," he repeated, assuredly this time, as if to convince himself that he was, in fact, prepared.

"Alright, um," Stan murmured, still holding his dick. He awkwardly wrapped his arm around Kyle's back and scooted closer, gently pushing him down until they were on top of each other.

It allayed Kyle, having Stan's body covering his own, feeling his erection hard, slick, and ready against his thigh. Stan's face was very close to his, guarded, watching for any reaction. Kyle brushed Stan's bangs away and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Don't be nervous. Please."

"I've never done this before," Stan admitted, burying his face into Kyle's shoulder.

"Me neither," Kyle said. He wrapped his arms around Stan's back, and in a hushed voice, whispered in his ear, "Don't you want to know what it's like though? It's supposed to feel um. Really good." He was pleased to hear Stan groan, elated to feel him jerk against his thigh with an eager jolt.

"Yeah," Stan said, his voice breathy and low, intoxicating like the thick scent of magnolias on hot summer evenings. Kyle felt a flush of tingling warmth washed over him, and he shivered, rolling his hips against Stan's abdomen. Stan reached down between their sweat-slicked bodies, his fingers grazing over Kyle's weeping erection, and gently cupped his balls in his hand, pulling them out of the way. Despite himself, Kyle let out a short whimper, unsure if he wanted Stan to squeeze harder or let go. Stan did let go, moving his hand away as he situated himself between Kyle's legs, snugly wedging his dick between his thighs.

This was perplexing, and for a moment Kyle wondered if this was a necessary step he didn't know about. He considered himself fairly well-versed, having studied that Greek plate for hours upon hours. It seemed impossible for Stan to know more about unnatural intercourse than he did.

"Oh God, you were right," Stan said, interrupting Kyle's haphazard thoughts.

"What? About what?"

Stan pressed his face against Kyle's neck, inhaling deeply. "This feels – really good. Really, really good."

"Oh, ah, yeah."

Stan began moving his hips in small, tentative bursts, moving in and out from between Kyle's thighs. Perhaps, Kyle thought, he'd eventually pick up enough speed, then delve deeper and penetrate him _back there_, but this didn't make much sense, considering the angle was wrong. Not to mention it would probably hurt.

Just as Kyle's erection was beginning to wane, he felt Stan's hand move between them and grasp his cock in his hand, pumping slowly at first, with the rhythm of his thrusts. Kyle concentrated on Stan's grip around him, somewhat satiated by the familiarity. Although he still didn't understand what exactly it was they were doing, at least there was some consolation in seeing Stan clearly in ecstasy, moving in and out from between his legs much faster now, his groaning interspersed with muffled whimpers.

Kyle's orgasm took him by surprise. He tensed, inadvertently squeezing his legs together even tighter, and thrust upward into Stan's hand, spilling his seed all over himself. Dazed, weary, he barely heard the guttural grunt Stan let out as he came between his legs, though he did sense, instantly, that everything down there was uncomfortably slick and sticky now. It made his old compulsions for cleanliness come back tenfold, and he desperately wanted to get up and find a rag to clean himself with, but Stan was still on top of him, limp and heavy.

Stan rolled off of him, draping his arm across Kyle's chest, and curled up against his side. "You can do me, if you want," he murmured. "Unless you just want to sleep now."

Kyle pursed his lips, nostrils flaring. Didn't Stan know him well enough by now to know he wouldn't want to take an active role? Let alone repeat whatever the hell they'd just done? He wanted to bark back a caustic retort, but as much as Stan's obliviousness aggravated him, he didn't have the energy, or perhaps the audacity, to be so cruel. "Could you just get me a towel or something?" he finally managed to say.

"Yeah, of course," Stan said. He lazily kissed Kyle's shoulder, then after a moment, dragged himself from the bed and trudged out of the room.

Kyle lay still, staring at the ceiling, while he waited for Stan to come back. Though his body was tired, his mind was reeling with agitated, circular thoughts. How was it that he'd been one-upped in his knowledge of unnatural intercourse by a simple farm boy? He immediately felt badly for thinking of Stan as such; he was much more than a simple farm boy. Then again, Stan couldn't _really_ know that much about sex between men if he'd misinterpreted the reason why he'd bought the Vaseline. He should have been clearer with what he wanted, Kyle thought bitterly, though it also angered him that he apparently had to be.

Stan returned with a damp washcloth and crawled back up onto the bed. Before he could begin cleaning him, Kyle took the washcloth from his hands, perhaps a bit too abruptly. He felt a twinge of guilt for this, but he really could not deal with Stan tending to him in the overly caring way he was apt to. He hastily wiped up the agonizing stickiness between his legs, then pulled his underwear back on, trying very hard not to think about how badly he wanted a bath.

"You okay?" Stan asked hesitantly. He was sitting opposite Kyle on the bed, meek and reserved, his form hunched over.

Kyle bit his lip, his angry resolve nullified by guilt. "Yes, I'm fine," he said. He wished he were diplomatic enough to tell Stan the truth, that he was really quite upset, because whatever they'd just done was not at all what he'd had in mind. But that would mean having to explain what exactly it was that he'd had in mind, and after this breech of understanding, he was even less certain of how Stan would react. "Let's just go to bed," he said. "I'm tired." It was a lie. But he couldn't bear to speak to Stan any longer, overburdened with maintaining the pretense that everything was fine.

For what felt like hours, Kyle lay awake, exhausted but unable to turn off his thoughts. He was hungry, too, and wished he'd thought to buy a snack at the drugstore earlier. And though he tried not to, he couldn't help but think of home: wearing cotton pajamas to bed, having tea and mandelbrodt on the back porch while he read _The Republic _or _Iphigenia in Tauris_ (he was convinced Orestes and Pylades shared a bond that was more than just brotherly), the long summer afternoons he'd spend at the library, his mother's home cooked varenyky. It made him sick with guilt to think of her, worse to imagine her distress that he had yet to come home. He realized then, miserably, that he wanted to go home, and badly. After he'd cried some silent, homesick tears into his pillow, he was finally able to sleep.

When Kyle woke late the next morning, he felt dazed with dehydration and acutely empty from hunger. Stan was not in the room, which unnerved him, and he quickly dressed and went downstairs, where he found him in the kitchen, washing dishes in a bucket of soapy water.

Stan briefly raised his head to look at Kyle, then quickly turned his focus back to his work. He was wearing his eye patch, which bothered Kyle for some reason. "These're all clean," he said, gesturing with his elbow to the glasses at his right. "There's a bucket of fresh water on the counter."

"Oh. Um, thanks." He picked up a glass and went over to the bucket on the counter behind Stan. The water was sort of cloudy. "Where is this water from?" he asked tentatively.

"The well," Stan responded.

That seemed safe enough, Kyle decided, and he dunked the glass into the bucket. The water was lukewarm, but tasted fine, and he downed two full glasses. He fiddled with his empty glass for a moment, disquieted by the uncomfortable silence between them. "So, um, where are Hack and Mole?" he asked.

"Went to town to find work."

"Ah."

More silence.

"Sorry I woke up so late," Kyle murmured.

"S'fine," Stan said, although his assurance was duly unconvincing, almost sarcastic, and Kyle instantly regretted his apology. "We'll catch up with 'em later."

They went into town for breakfast shortly thereafter. Neither of them spoke much. It was clear now that Stan was aware that last night had been a disaster, and was accordingly acting childishly distant and curt towards Kyle, as if it were _his_ fault that Stan failed to understand what unnatural intercourse was actually about. He wanted to be angry on principle, but the sun was hot, beating over his head, and the only energy he had was to keep walking, and to sweat.

When they arrived at the small tavern in the dumpier part of Ogden, Kyle had never been more relieved to see Hack and Mole. Hack beamed when he noticed them and promptly waved them over to their table. "Got jobs lined up for us at that farm from last year," he said. "We start the day after tomorrow. Wheat ain't fully ripe yet."

"Oh, good," Stan said. "Sorry we made ya go in our stead." Kyle couldn't help but interpret this as a personal jibe. He scooted his chair away from him a bit.

Hack shrugged. "Don't matter none. Guess you two needed yer rest, huh?" He said it casually, but there was an annoying glint in his eye.

"Uh, yeah," Stan said. He cleared his throat. "So, we got header crew again? I don't imagine you were lucky enough to snag us some thresher jobs, were ya?"

"They got a crew contracted already," Hack replied. "Makes sense with it bein' such a big farm and all."

"Yeah. Well, I'm fine with header crew," Stan said.

"Me too," Kyle said, very deliberately, shooting a pointed glance at Stan. Although he'd been hoping for a thresher job, he was determined to prove to Stan, to all of them, that he was just as capable of hard labor as they were. He wasn't a spineless city slicker who could only bear leisurely chucking wheat into a thresher feeder. Not anymore, anyway.

Stan and Hack were the only ones who really spoke at lunch, discussing which routes they'd catch out to follow the wheat harvest, which was boring. Kyle didn't bother piping up with comments as he usually did when he felt excluded by their conversation, he just glowered covertly, thinking about last night, eying Stan with unnoticed disdain once in a while. Mole was characteristically silent (except his loud chewing), and as much as he loathed the wild man, Kyle wished he were more verbal than the occasional grunt so he could strum up some conversation with him, if only so Stan would notice.

After lunch, Stan proposed they get supplies for the house. "Just some substantials for the week. Forty-fives, cereal, java, that kinda stuff."

"Always thinkin' ahead, huh?" Hack said. He dug a cigarette out of his back pocket and lit it with a match. "Not a bad idea though. Saw there's a general store o'er there."

Kyle watched the three of them head down the road, unable to make himself follow them. He didn't want to spend the afternoon biting his tongue to keep from snapping at Stan, or hearing Hack's aggravating drawl, or trying to keep up with their ridiculous jargon.

Stan turned his head over his shoulder and looked at him strangely.

"Handle? You comin'?" Hack asked.

"I'm ah –" Kyle wanted to say no, but it's not like he had anywhere else to go. And if he loitered around Ogden by himself for a while, he didn't know how he'd catch up them again. "Y-yeah," he finally responded, slowing trudging forward.

At the general store, which was small but well-stocked, Hack and Stan went through a list of groceries to the storekeeper. Kyle thought about buying a postcard to send to his mother, but realized this was a stupid idea since it would be postmarked from Ogden, Texas. He'd have to think of something else. Maybe if he called during the day, his mother would be out shopping (or doing whatever it was that she did all day), and he'd be able to leave a message with one of the maids. But did the maids answer the phone? He couldn't remember; he couldn't even remember any of their names right now.

The cost of the food totaled seven dollars, which they split amongst the four of them. Then, they decided – that is, Hack proposed and Stan agreed – to head back the house. The walk back was terrible: the sun hung hot and burning in the cloudless sky, the fields swarmed with buzzing insects, and worst of all, Kyle had to pee.

When they finally made it to the house (which looked less creepy, but more morose, in broad daylight, as if it knew it had been abandoned), Kyle was able to slip away while Hack, Stan and Mole unpacked the groceries. He had to walk out a fair bit from the house to find a sufficiently wooded area, and he surveyed his surroundings carefully to make sure he was alone before he dared unzip his fly.

Despite how humid it was, he took his time walking to the house, not at all eager to get back. Maybe he'd just step in to grab his diary and find some shady spot where he could try to write. However, he feared that inscribing his frustrations would exacerbate them, and besides, he didn't really have the energy or desire. A nap, actually, sounded ideal. He just hoped he could sleep in this heat.

Kyle went around the house to go in through the front door, and he was about to go upstairs when he heard what sounded like arguing in the kitchen.

"I knew you two were up to somethin' in New Or'lins," Stan said, his voice thick with annoyance. "Jesus Christ, have you really been carrying all this around with you the whole time?"

"Why're ya so hooty?" This was Hack's voice. "I was just askin' outta courtesy."

"You know I don't want any!" Stan snapped back. "And I don't want you askin' Handle, either," he added darkly.

At the mention of his nickname, Kyle was even more curious to know what was going on, so he slowly stepped back to the door, opened and shut it very loudly, then strolled into the kitchen as nonchalantly as possible. In the middle of the kitchen table was a pile of little baggies filled with what appeared to be confectioner's sugar.

Stan was taken aback by his entrance. "Ky –" He cut himself off, grimaced, and then asked, "Where were you?"

"Taking a piss," he answered coolly, although it unnerved him to speak so crudely, especially about his own bodily functions. "Sorry I didn't inform you."

Hack and Mole both snorted at this. Stan narrowed his eye, his expression hard. He huffed, his nostrils flaring, then, between clenched teeth, muttered to Kyle, "I need to talk to you. Alone."

"Why, so you can tell me what I'm not allowed to do?" Kyle said. Truly irritated now, he added, "I'm not a child, _Swarm_, and if I wanted someone to boss me around, I'd just go back home."

Stan was fuming, and it pleased Kyle immensely to see that he was able to get under his skin. Brusquely, Stan stomped past Kyle and out of the kitchen, his footsteps making the whole house shudder as he clomped up the stairs. He slammed the door shut, making dust sprinkle down from the ceiling in the kitchen.

Hack rolled his eyes. "Sheesh. He's always gotta ruin the fun."

"No kidding," Kyle commented.

"So we still doin' some of this or what?" Mole said gruffly, and Kyle nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. He had forgotten he was here.

"Yeah. We gotta set a limit though." Hack sat down at the kitchen table and picked up one of the bags, analyzing it. "Let's see how long one gram'll last us. I don't wanna blast through all this." He untied the bag and dumped its contents on the table. "You stayin', Handle?"

"Um. Yeah." Kyle pulled out a chair and sat opposite Hack. He was fairly certain now that the white powder wasn't sugar, but he was reluctant to ask what it actually was. Hoping to get the answer indirectly, he asked Hack, "Why was he so mad?"

"He came down off this stuff hard once, swore he'd never touch it again," Hack said. He had procured a razor blade from somewhere and was splitting the powder into parallel lines.

Kyle theorized it must be some kind of drug. Dope? Is this what dope looked like?

"You done coke before, Handle?" Hack asked as he neatened up the lines.

Oh, cocaine. That didn't seem too bad, then. It was in medicine, after all. Kyle considered lying, but decided to admit, "Not like this, no."

Hack looked up at him and grinned. "You're in for some fun then."

Nervously, Kyle smiled back.

"Now let's see if I got a dollar in here," Hack said, digging in his pockets. "Ah, here we go." He pulled out a crumpled one dollar bill and proceeded to flatten it out on the table with the edge of his hand. "This ain't gonna work. Need a stiffer one. Hmm. Hey, Mole, you got a nicer lookin' note?"

Mole grunted, but obliged, looking through his own pockets. Kyle had at least a dozen ones in his wallet, but he was hesitant to open up his wallet in front of Hack and Mole, as it was quite literally stuffed with cash. Then he remembered that it was Stan who had told him to be wary of letting other people know he had money on him, and he felt hateful towards him all over again. Defiantly, Kyle got out his wallet, pulled out three crisp bills, and set them on the table.

"Oh, nice. One for each of us," Hack said gleefully. He took a bill and rolled it into a tight cylinder. Mumbling to himself, Mole finally joined them at the table and did likewise. Kyle quickly followed suit and did the same with his bill before they could notice him studying their rolling technique. While he had no clue what they'd be doing with rolled up dollar bills, he figured he'd be able to save himself from embarrassment so long as he copied what Hack and Mole did. He just hoped they wouldn't be cramming the coke into the little rolls and then smoking them. The thought of destroying money made him cringe.

"Now," Hack said, suddenly diplomatic. "We ain't turnin' into no snowbirds, ya hear?" He was looked at Mole as he said this, who evaded his gaze. "We'll be able to make a nice stake for ourselves this summer if we don't get too nutty with this stuff."

"Alright, _Pa_," Mole muttered, and Kyle almost laughed at this, but Hack looked seriously offended.

"I'm just sayin'," Hack grumbled. Pointing a finger at Mole, he said, "And you _wish_ you –" He suddenly cut himself off.

"I wish I what?" Mole asked sternly.

"Nothin'. I didn't say nothin'," Hack said, irritated. "Let's just have a nice afternoon. Fer chrissake…"

Hack took his rolled up dollar bill, and bafflingly, stuck it into his nostril. Then, even more startling, while still holding the bill just inside his nose, he leaned over the table, touched the bottom of the bill to the end of a line, then slowly moved to the right as he sucked up the white powder up through his nose. He leaned back and shook his head side to side very quickly, scrunching his face up, then finally exhaled, his lips flapping around in a ridiculous manner. "Yeah, gonna be feelin' that alright." He sniffed a few times, then got up to give Mole his seat.

As Kyle watched Mole repeat the same nostril-vacuuming process Hack had done, he got increasingly apprehensive about having to do it himself. He worried about inhaling the powder without coughing or gagging and inevitably making a fool of himself. But he didn't have time to fret about this much more, because Mole was already finished. Feeling a trickle of sweat drip down the side of his face, Kyle pushed his chair out and stood up, stupidly bumped into the side of the table, then took a seat in front of the remaining four lines.

He took his dollar bill and carefully placed it inside his right nostril, staring at the line he was about to inhale into his…lungs? sinuses? brain? Hesitating, he tried to figure this out. Then, realizing he was simply delaying and any second now Hack and Mole might notice, he panicked and sucked up the entire line of cocaine through his nose. It wasn't as difficult as he had feared. It did burn, though, which took him by surprise, and he squeezed the bridge of his nose, massaging it. Sitting very still, he took a few deep breaths. The back of his throat was a little scratchy and tingly, but otherwise, he felt fine.

"Handle, Handle!" Hack said excitedly, leaning in very close to his face. "You're gonna love this shit. You're gonna love it. Just wait. Just give it a minute. Then you're gonna feel it." He grinned wider and patted Kyle on the shoulder. And again. And again. And again.

Hack's hand remained on his shoulder, hot and annoying, and Kyle brushed it away, irritated by the contact. "Okay, okay," he said. "Jeez."

Within a few seconds, Kyle felt his heart begin to pump faster. Hack and Mole were both talking, loudly, and Kyle tried to block them out, concentrating on how his body was reacting to the drug. His nose was dripping now, and he felt somewhat warmer, his limbs tingling slightly. He got up to make sure he could still walk, circling the tiny kitchen a few times as he wiped at his nose with his initialed handkerchief.

"Shit, I fuckin' love this shit," Mole said. It was the first time Kyle had heard him speak levelly, as if he were an actual human being.

"I know, I know, I know," Hack responded, beaming. He then sniffed loudly and threw his head back, rolling his shoulders, the expression on his face completely blissed-out.

Kyle leaned against the kitchen counter, watching them bitterly and feeling left out. How long would it be until he got all pepped up, too? How long had it been since he'd sucked that cocaine up his nose? Three, four minutes? Frustrated, he picked at his lip, peeling the dried out skin off in satisfyingly-long pieces. He was sweating a lot now, and he wanted to take off his shirt, but he wouldn't dare it with Hack and Mole here to gawk at his goofy pink nipples.

He stared at the three lines of white powder left on the table. Maybe one line wasn't enough. Maybe he needed to do a little more for his body to feel the effects. Like half of a second line. Or three fifths of a second line. Three fifths sounded good. Watching Hack and Mole out of the corner of his eye, Kyle crept over to the table, dug the rolled up dollar bill out of his pocket, retightened it, and leaned over to suck more cocaine up his nose. Three fifths of the way down the line, he paused, wondering if he should stop, but then decided two more fifths couldn't hurt, and he might as well finish what he'd started. It burned more than the first time, but the sensation was tolerable, and he staggered back to where he'd been standing, relieved that Hack and Mole were all but oblivious to his presence, shouting at each other with unnerving excitement.

Exactly twenty-two seconds later (he counted), he started to feel it. Not all at once, but at a comfortable level of build-up, he began to feel utterly, indescribably, wonderful. He was still very hot, his nose was still dripping, and his heart was still pounding, and although he was conscious of all that, it didn't bother him at all: he was so incredibly _happy_, the happiest he'd ever been in his entire life. It was a pure, bubbling happiness, blossoming and intensifying in his body, as if there were jubilant choirs inside him, shouting out with joy to the tune of his racing heartbeat.

He had to share this with Stan! Kyle raced out of the kitchen, empowered by his own overwhelming energy, but then, remembering he was supposed to still be angry with him, he halted in the middle of the dining room, nearly falling on his face. What had they argued about, again? Oh, the catastrophe of last night, of course. He picked at his lip, his brain teeming with thousands of viable solutions to their argument. The best of his brilliant answers was also the simplest: all he had to do was clearly explain the practical dynamics of unnatural intercourse. If Stan were truly inverted (of which Kyle was sure of), there was no way he _wouldn't_ be on board with engaging in the most sacred of intimate acts. Easy as pie! Why hadn't he thought of that before?

Bolting out of the dining room, Kyle turned on a sharp pivot to hurry up the steps. His mind and his body felt so powerful, everything working in sync. Then, jarringly, he collided into something obtrusive and unexpected on the stairs, and the glorious physiological seamlessness fell into temporary disorder.

To Kyle's extreme delight, the universe had tossed him right into Stan's lap. "Oh, Stan, Stan!" he cried, clinging to him, oblivious to Stan's bewilderment. "I've missed you terribly."

"Kyle – You didn't – You did, didn't you?" Stan said. Frustrated, he struggled to stand on the steps, but Kyle was still firmly attached to him.

"I did what?" Kyle asked. Reluctantly, he loosened his full-body grip on Stan and stood next to him, pressing his ear against his shoulder.

"Coke!" Stan practically shouted, and Kyle instantly stepped away from him, deeply annoyed.

"No, no! I mean, I did, but – Jesus, Stan, I feel fucking amazing! So _excuse me_ for wanting to tell you about it." He folded his arms over his chest, feeling his heart beating oppressively fast.

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "Alright, Kyle, _fine._ But you realize you're only gonna feel like this for so long, right? You gotta come down at some point."

Scoffing, Kyle retorted, "What're you talking about?"

"You're gonna crash! And then you're gonna be miserable!"

This seemed preposterous, but logically, it made sense. However, it was a non-issue at this point, because every cell in Kyle's body was fired up, crackling with energy he never knew he had, and he'd be damned if he was going to waste it arguing with Stan. But then again, one last appeal couldn't hurt. "Can you _please_ just do some? One line, maybe?" Kyle pleaded, planting his hands on Stan's stiff shoulders. "Please? Please, Stan, please? For me?" He batted his eyelashes for extra effect.

"No!" Stan bellowed. The anger in his voice shot through Kyle's skull, threatening to turn his elation into curdling fury.

"Fine!" Kyle shouted back, determined to be even louder. He soared down the steps, desperate to be away from Stan's foul mood and the dimness of the house, believing that the simplicity of sunshine would recalibrate his being.

He burst through front door and was met with the most exhilarating light. The sun was wild and glorious, breathing its strength into his veins as he ran through the fields. He threw his head back, flinging his arms out at his sides, envisioning himself a newborn phoenix, free from the ashen gloom of the house and remade by the fiery warmth of the hot Texan air. Faster and faster he ran, imagining that at any moment he would take off into the sky.

Eventually, he slowed down. He was drenched with sweat, his clothes sticking to him, and he squirmed out of his dress shirt, not caring that he ripped off some buttons in the process. Just for a minute, just to catch his breath, he plopped down on the ground, tall grasses cushioning his body against the earth. His nose was still dripping, and though his mouth felt oddly numb, he could tell he was parched. He thought of the pool at the La Salle Hotel, and wanted more than anything to dive into its cool, crystal-clear waters. He'd move beneath the surface with the high-speed agility of a dolphin, the sea's finest creature. No, no, not a dolphin, he thought, recalling Stan's stupid obsession with the constellation. Dolphins were naïve and flippant, infesting the ocean with their glib giggling gurgles. They were exactly the type who would dumbly misinterpret something screamingly obvious right in front of their perfect noses.

Land was preferable, anyway. He spread out on top of the grass, feeling comfortably grounded. He could be a fox. A cunning, swift forest-dweller with a silky crimson coat. His skill and his wits would be what got him out of binds, or convinced the more empty-headed creatures of the forest to do his bidding for him. Oh, it was simply marvelous being a fox. He flopped onto his stomach and crouched in hiding beneath the tall grasses, pretending a dim-witted mole was sniffing around just ahead, stupidly waiting for him to sink his sharp teeth into its flesh.

A distant shout ripped Kyle from his anthropomorphic ideations. It sounded suspiciously like Stan, and he groaned, burrowing deeper into the grass, hoping to evade discovery. He lifted his head just enough to peer down the field and saw Stan running exasperatedly, stopping every few seconds to yell, "Kyle! Kyle! Where are you? Kyle!" He sounded legitimately panicked, which made Kyle nervous, and all the more reluctant to be found.

Stan's shouts were getting closer, and Kyle felt like he was going to die from how fast his heart was pounding in his chest. He was cornered. The fox was guilty, and the gingerbread man was dead-set on revenge. Although he may have outwitted the gingerbread man before, the crazed thing could just remake himself from fresh dough, hop out of the oven, and go after the poor fox again. He fretted, imagining blazing red gum-drop eyes that wanted to suck the soul out of his body.

Suddenly, an arm was on his back. He jerked away, panicking. "Kyle! What the hell?" the gingerbread man said.

"You won't catch me so easily," the fox growled. He narrowed his eyes and made a menacing guttural sound in the back of his throat.

"What? I'm not – Jesus, Kyle, are you okay?" The gingerbread man half-sobbed this, and Kyle, not the fox, realized this wasn't a game. He stared dumbstruck, watching Stan wipe his eye with his palm.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Kyle said, forcing himself to speak very softly. He touched Stan's arm with a shaking hand, disturbed that the panic in his face did not lessen.

"Okay," Stan said. He seemed unconvinced, so Kyle got up and jogged around in circles a few times.

"See, totally fine!" Kyle said.

His eyes shut tight, Stan dragged his palm down his face. Kyle watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. He wanted to lick it. So he did. The sweat on Stan's neck tasted almost exotic on his dried tongue. "What are you doing?" Stan asked tiredly.

"Nothing. I'm just – thirsty," Kyle murmured, pulling away. Although the dryness in his mouth was becoming increasingly distracting, he needed a sweat-slicked Stan, not well water, to quench his truer thirst.

"Let's go get you some water then," Stan said. There was a trace of annoyance in his voice that felt crushing to Kyle. He ought to have stomped off, but he was suddenly very tired, his limbs heavy and weight-like. In an instant, everything felt so, so wrong: the wonderful elation of only moments ago had starkly shifted into crippling agony. Distantly, he recalled Stan's warning that he would eventually come down from the drug. But he hadn't known it would be like this. He never could've imagined it would be this drastic, or this harrowing.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "You said you were thirsty, right? Kyle?"

"I – I don't know," he replied, mumbling. He dropped to his knees and let himself fall sideways onto the ground. Stan's anxious voice rang hard in his ears, but Kyle did not hear his words. As he lay in the dirt, watching the alarm in Stan's face twist into fear, it was like he was peering into an unreachable reality a thousand times more dynamic than his own, the same way he felt when he went to see moving picture stories at the nickelodeon.

Annoyingly, Stan was trying to hoist him up. "Leave me be. Let me die here," Kyle muttered. "Let the vultures pick away at me."

"Kyle, please, just – C'mon," Stan pleaded. "Let's get back to the house."

Walking very slowly, Kyle let Stan hold his hand as they trudged through the fields. Not only in body, but also in mind and spirit, he was thoroughly dehydrated, sapped dry of his dreams, emotions, and intellect. The coke made them reach their ultimate potential, and then, complimentarily, robbed them from him in entirety. He was nothingness, and yet, in the corporeal sense, he still existed. His punishment, he knew, as deemed by cosmic law, was to bear the torment of living as a hollowed-out vessel, eternally nostalgic for respiratory consciousness. He wanted to die.

Stan squeezed his hand. "You'll be okay," he said. "You just need to sleep it off. And drink a lot of water."

The former sounded impossible, the latter reasonable, necessary, though only to sustain the prison that was his body. If he had any inclination for speech, he would've told Stan to shut up.

Kyle welcomed the grim darkness of the house. Stan led him into the kitchen and had him sit at the table, saying he'd be back in a minute with water. The mountain of cocaine-filled baggies was gone, the only evidence remaining some traces of white powder where Hack had cut the lines. Ordinarily, Hack would be the first person Kyle would've blamed for how miserable he felt right now, but in his current state, he could only blame himself. He put his face in his hands, wracked with regret and self-hatred. The tears came easily. He did not sob, simply sat unmoving at the kitchen table, collecting his tears in his hands.

The kitchen door creaked open and rattled shut. Stan's footsteps, the sounds of his movements when he came back inside, and the shallow huffing of his breathing did not fill Kyle with the security of knowing he was nearby. His presence felt painful, somehow. However, Stan's leaving him horrified him just as much as being left alone. Kyle thought again of his reckless defiance to Stan's warning. He didn't deserve to be taken care of. He didn't deserve _him_.

There was a soft clink as a glass of water was set in front of him. "Please drink," Stan said. His voice was so pleading, the worry so apparent in his face, that tears began to stream anew from Kyle's eyes. He didn't try to stop them.

"Shh, shhh, it's okay," Stan said, crouching down to caress Kyle's face, wiping the tears away for him. He pressed a long kiss to his forehead. "It's okay, you'll be okay."

Kyle leaned into the touch, yearning for Stan to erase his despair, but knowing he couldn't. "I won't be. You don't understand."

Frowning, Stan pulled out a chair – to Kyle's discomfort, the same one where they'd done the lines earlier – and sat down. He laced his fingers between Kyle's limp, disinterested ones, and said, "No, I do. I know how you feel right now. Like nothing matters. Like you'll never be happy again. But it'll go away. I promise."

That's exactly what it felt like. However, it was little consolation to know that Stan sympathized; the crash after the high was so consuming that it was hard to take comfort in the compassion Stan so selflessly gave to him, let alone be grateful for it. And although he knew Stan wouldn't lie to him, Kyle simply could not believe that this wouldn't last forever. There was no end to this, and he knew it. He stared at the glass of cloudy water on the table, thinking maybe there was well-bacteria in it that could kill him. He drank it slowly, in careful, germ-ridden mouthfuls. Then, he closed his eyes and concentrated on willing the bacteria to eat away at his insides. Nothing happened, of course, and he imagined God laughing at him for trying to escape his pathological castigation.

He felt Stan's hand on his forehead, and when he realized he was checking for a fever, just as his mother did when he was sick, Kyle's eyes began to water again. "Do you think you can drink another glass?" Stan asked.

"I guess."

Kyle drank a second glass, and then three quarters of a third, realizing how thirsty he was as he continued to drink. This seemed to allay Stan, and Kyle couldn't tell if he was truly relieved by this or simply deluding himself of the fact, for relief at the absolvent of another's concerns was fundamentally human, and he was in no position to believe that he was returning to his former self any time soon, if ever.

"I was so scared when you ran off," Stan said quietly.

Not looking at him, Kyle murmured, "I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. It's fine now."

"Nothing is fine," Kyle said bitterly. "I'm in hell."

Stan looked like he might cry, which made Kyle uncomfortable. "It'll be okay," he said for what felt like the thirtieth time. "Do you want to go lie down?"

"I guess." With inordinate difficulty, Kyle willed himself to get up. He realized then that he was filthy, covered in dust and dirt and some stray pieces of broken grass. On one hand, he was apathetic, but on the other, more insistent one, he badly wished he could just snap his fingers and be clean; the idea of trying to wash himself with a damp rag seemed like the worst thing in the world. He sat back down again and covered his face with his hands, groaning miserably.

Necessarily, Stan pestered him about it. "Kyle? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I need a bath," Kyle grunted.

"Oh… Well, um, if you want, I could get you a bucket of soapy water and a washcloth," Stan murmured, trailing off.

"I can't do it."

"I can do it."

"Fine."

Stan swallowed audibly. "Um. Be right back then." He slipped out of the kitchen into the backyard.

Kyle put his head on the kitchen table and tried to tolerate how horrible he felt. The air in the kitchen was stifling, and time seemed to hang suspended in its dreary haze, too heavy and sluggish to accelerate. In each breath his took, he absorbed the thick nothingness of time and space into his body, metaphysically suffocating himself.

The kitchen door clattered shut when Stan came back inside, penetrating the sedative void of the room. He lifted a heavy bucket to the kitchen table with a reverberating thud. "Do you want to go upstairs?" he asked. "In case Hack and Mole come back?"

"Sure," Kyle said. Although he recognized this was a good idea, it meant he would have to climb up the steps, which seemed daunting when just getting out of this chair was a strain. Listlessly, he followed Stan into the dining room, then upstairs, trudging laboriously up each step. Once in their room, he plopped down on top of the trunk at the foot of their bed, thoroughly exhausted.

Stan eased the bucket onto the floor in front of him and then rummaged throughout the room, procuring a frayed washcloth and a bar of soap. After rolling up his sleeves, he knelt on the floor and dutifully lathered up the washcloth, repeatedly dunking it into the bucket until the water was white and soapy. Then, hesitantly, he looked up at Kyle. "Are you gonna take off your pants?"

Kyle murmured unintelligibly, shaking his head. "You do it."

Without speaking, Stan did so, yanking Kyle's slacks and underwear down with determined care. He rolled them into a ball and pushed them aside, saying something about doing laundry at the jungle later.

The hard wood on his naked rear, Kyle sat motionless, aching and bitter in the knowledge that if it weren't for his numbing apathy, this situation would be delightfully sexual. He eyed the crotch of Stan's pants as he began to drag the cool washcloth over his skin and was further depressed to see the outline of his hard cock. Unable to look at what had been one of the greatest joys of his former happy existence, Kyle shut his eyes and pretended it was some anonymous entity washing him, someone who didn't care about him like Stan did.

This was no longer possible when the washcloth progressed lower, over his cock and between his legs. When Kyle cracked his eyes open to see a dark flush to Stan's cheeks, he was overwhelmed with fresh grief. "I'm sorry," he said, sniffing. "I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid." With the last bit of strength left in his body, he managed to sob.

"Shh, Kyle, no – You're not stupid," Stan said, planting delicate kisses on his clean face, brushing his curls away with damp fingers. "And you don't have to apologize."

"Yes I do," Kyle muttered in defeat. "I just do."

Stan let out a weary sigh. "Okay."

Although he was still undeniably morose, Kyle did feel better once he was clean. He let the warm air dry his skin while Stan organized the room, wringing the washcloth out and taking the soapy water downstairs. Cognitively, at least, he was grateful for Stan, for everything Stan was doing to take care of him, especially when he'd been so goddamn stupid, but emotionally, it was very taxing trying to conjure up the same response.

He spent the rest of the afternoon lying in bed. Thankfully, Stan stayed with him, silently curled up on his side, pressing his forehead into Kyle's shoulder or lightly stroking his arm with the back of his fingers. The slowness of time returned and inundated Kyle with its opaqueness, preventing him from falling asleep. When the orange sunlight began to fade from the room, Stan went to fetch some food from the kitchen. Kyle went with him, not only because he was reluctant to be alone, but also because he had had to pee for the past twenty minutes.

On the way down the steps, they heard sporadic murmurings in the parlor: Hack and Mole had returned at some point and were sprawled out on the rickety love seats, both of them egregiously filthy and sweaty. The scene easily lent itself to hate, and Kyle wished badly that he cared enough to abhor them.

Shaking his head, Stan headed straight to the kitchen to put something of a meal together. Kyle followed, then tiredly slipped outside to pee right next to the house, not even caring if Stan was able to hear his pee stream from inside. He didn't wash his hands afterward, either, but then he'd been making a habit of that for days now.

They ate crackers and beef jerky in their room. Stan drank some cheap looking alcohol that smelled almost as potent as rubbing alcohol, and while Kyle thought of drinking some so he could get sleepy, the smell was too intense for him to even imagine consuming. Neither of them speaking, they sat very close, thighs touching. The quiet was lulling and stupefying, a drowsier manifestation of the pervasive standstill of time, undeterred by the occasional thud downstairs or the caw of some anxious bird.

That night, when Kyle finally slept, he dreamed of an underworld of watery shadows and cold rivers. He let the waters carry him, neither knowing nor trusting their direction. At once, there was a surge of movement, a volt of thought. Defying the ancient stagnancy, the current had hastened, and however simple it was, his realization of this change was damning, revolutionary, brazen in its destruction of one hundred vacuous years. At the peak of velocity, he remembered fear. The waters slowed, as if the scope of his being, having returned to sensuality, could speak to them.

He was lifted onto a beach with sands so white his vision left him before it fully came back. Blinking frantically, he looked beyond the burning brightness, into the dark waves from whence he came. A sleek, gray tail waved at him. Moving his hand like a pendulum, he waved back.


End file.
